Banking industry consolidation leading to disappearing peer groups for bank examination purposes has led to changes to uniform performance reports by the umbrella group for federal financial regulators, the agency said Friday.
The Federal Financial Institution Examination Council (FFIEC) said the changes it is making to the Uniform Bank Performance Report (UBPR) – used by all three federal banking regulators – are to the population definitions used for the peer groups. The changes take effect “on or shortly after” Feb. 26, the council said. They are part of the agency’s review of commercial bank peer groups it started last year.
According to a table released by the council, the peer group changes are for banks with $300 million or less in assets. There are no changes for bank peer groups larger than $300 million.
Essentially, the changes consolidate the 12 peer groups for banks smaller than $300 billion down to three: $100 million to $300 million in assets; $50 million to $100 million; less than $50 million. According to the FFIEC table, those peer groups account for 1,668 banks (as of Sept. 30, 2025).
By contrast, the peer group for banks with more than $300 million in assets accounts for 2,167 institutions, the FFIEC table shows. However, that batch of banks is broken down into five groups: $300 million to $1 billion; $1 billion to $3 billion; $3 billion to $10 billion; $10 billion to $100 billion; greater than $100 billion.
The smaller bank peer groups, in addition to being tightened up, also removes two factors: count of offices and count of headquarters in metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs). ROAA peer group averages and Tier 1 (T1) leveraged peer average both remain (as they do for the large bank groups).
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