Updated April 2026 · FDIC quarterly Call Report data
Bank Safety Blog
Plain-English articles on bank safety, FDIC insurance, capital ratios, and the practical question every depositor eventually asks: is my bank actually healthy? Every claim cites public data from the FDIC, the FFIEC Call Report archive, or the OCC.
What This Blog Covers
The questions that surface most in our search logs cluster into three buckets: methodology (what does Tier 1 capital actually measure, what is a CAMELS rating), risk identification (which loan categories are concentrated where, what historically precedes a failure), and access (does FDIC insurance reach my fintech app, what are the deposit insurance limits). Articles below address each in turn, always with a citation to the underlying public filing.
We deliberately avoid two things. First, news-cycle hot takes — a story that hinges on this morning's share price will be wrong by next week, so we focus on durable structure: ratios, regulatory definitions, the history of failure modes. Second, anything that resembles investment advice. The FDIC publishes the data, regulators interpret it for supervisory purposes, and depositors are entitled to read both. We help with the reading.
Every metric quoted in these posts is reproducible from the FDIC BankFind API or the FFIEC Call Report bulk download. If you ever want to verify a number, the source filing is one click away — we cite the report date, the bank's FDIC certificate number, and the Call Report field code wherever feasible.
All Articles
Commercial Real Estate Is the Biggest Risk to US Banks in 2026
CRE loan concentration is the #1 risk factor for community banks in 2026. $1.5 trillion in loans maturing, office vacancies above 20%, and small banks carrying disproportionate exposure.
Are Neobanks Safe? FDIC Coverage for Online Banks and Fintech Apps
Neobanks partner with FDIC-insured banks, but the Synapse collapse in 2024 showed how those partnerships can break. How to verify your online bank is actually insured before you deposit.
CAMELS Rating System Explained: How Regulators Grade Banks
The CAMELS rating is how regulators grade your bank in private. Each component explained, plus why these ratings are confidential by federal law and what public proxies you can use instead.
Is My Bank Safe? How to Check Using FDIC Data
A step-by-step guide to checking your bank's financial health using publicly available FDIC Call Report data. What to look for, what the numbers actually mean, and when to worry.
Safest Banks in America 2026 (By the Data)
The top 20 safest banks ranked by Bank Health Score using FDIC quarterly data. Capital ratios, loan quality, and liquidity all on the same scale, no marketing claims.
Bank Capital Ratios Explained in Plain English
What Tier 1 capital ratio actually means, why regulators consider 8% the line for "well-capitalized," and how to read the number on your own bank's quarterly Call Report.
How We Cite Sources
Every quantitative claim links back to the originating filing or dataset. Capital and liquidity ratios trace to a specific bank's most recent Call Report on the FFIEC. Aggregate national figures — number of FDIC-insured institutions, total industry assets, failure counts — come straight from FDIC publications. Where we describe regulatory standards (e.g., the 8% well-capitalized line for Tier 1 capital), the source is the published rule from the OCC, FDIC, or Federal Reserve, not a third-party summary. Disagreements between sources, where they exist, are flagged in the article.
Read our full scoring methodology for details on the Bank Health Score, including factor weights, the 8-quarter trend window, and how raw FDIC fields are transformed into a 0–100 score. The methodology page also lists every Call Report field used.
Frequently Asked Questions
How often are these articles updated?
Articles are revised whenever the underlying FDIC quarterly Call Report data is republished — typically four times a year. The numbers cited inside each post (capital ratios, NPL trends, asset totals) are pinned to the report date so the math always reflects an actual filing rather than a stale estimate. The current data set covers 3,960 FDIC-insured institutions and was last refreshed April 2026.
Where does the underlying data come from?
Every number used in these articles is drawn from public regulator filings: the FDIC BankFind API (for institutional metadata and quarterly financials), the FFIEC Call Report archive (for line-item detail), and the OCC for newsroom enforcement actions. We never estimate, project, or model unreported figures — if the FDIC has not yet published a number, we say so.
Do you give specific financial advice?
No. These articles explain how to read regulatory data and what historical research has shown about bank failure indicators. They are not investment advice, deposit advice, or a recommendation to move money. For a decision about your own accounts, talk to a fiduciary financial advisor and confirm FDIC insurance limits at FDIC.gov directly.
How do you decide what topics to cover?
Three filters: (1) the question shows up in our search logs from depositors trying to evaluate their own bank, (2) public FDIC or FFIEC data exists to answer it without speculation, and (3) the topic is durable — we avoid news-cycle takes that go stale in a week. The result is heavier on methodology and reading-the-data-yourself than on hot takes.
Why focus on FDIC data instead of stock prices or analyst ratings?
Stock prices reflect investor sentiment about the bank as an investment; FDIC Call Report data reflects the bank's ability to withstand losses on its loan book and meet depositor withdrawals. Those are different questions. For a depositor — someone whose money is sitting in a checking or savings account — capital and liquidity ratios are far more relevant than share price.
Sources: FDIC BankFind API ( banks.data.fdic.gov), FFIEC Call Reports ( cdr.ffiec.gov/public), Office of the Comptroller of the Currency ( occ.gov). All public-domain government filings.
Last updated 2026-04-06 · 3,960 FDIC-insured institutions tracked. Articles are not investment advice; consult a fiduciary advisor before changing where you bank.