What Is a Bank Call Report? FDIC Financial Data Explained

Every FDIC-insured bank files a detailed financial statement with regulators every quarter. It's called a Call Report — and the data is public. Here's what's in it and why it matters.

What a Call Report is

A Call Report (officially the Consolidated Reports of Condition and Income, or FFIEC 041/051) is a comprehensive financial statement that every FDIC-insured commercial bank and savings institution must file with federal regulators on a quarterly basis. The name dates to the 19th century, when bank examiners would literally “call on” banks to produce their books.

Today, all ~4,600 FDIC-insured institutions file electronically through the FFIEC. The data is made public through the FDIC's BankFind database — one of the most comprehensive public financial disclosure systems in the world.

What's in a Call Report

Call Reports contain hundreds of data fields organized into several schedules:

Balance Sheet (Schedule RC)

Total assets, total deposits, total loans, total equity capital, and borrowings as of the quarter end.

Income Statement (Schedule RI)

Net interest income, noninterest income, operating expenses, and net income for the quarter.

Capital Adequacy

Tier 1 capital ratio, total risk-based capital ratio, and leverage ratio — the core indicators regulators use to assess bank solvency.

Loan Quality

Nonperforming loans, loans 30–89 days past due, charge-offs, and loan loss reserves — signals of credit quality in the bank's portfolio.

Performance Ratios

Return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE), net interest margin (NIM), and efficiency ratio — computed from the income statement and balance sheet data.

Why Call Report data matters to you

For most consumers, Call Report data answers a simple question: Is my bank financially healthy? Two metrics do most of the work:

• ROA (Return on Assets): Is the bank profitable? An ROA above 0 means yes; below 0 means the bank is losing money.
• Tier 1 Capital Ratio: Does the bank have enough of a buffer to absorb losses? Above 10% is well-capitalized; below 6% is a regulatory warning zone.

For researchers, journalists, and analysts, Call Reports are the primary data source for understanding the banking system — tracking concentration, identifying stressed institutions, and comparing peer groups. The FDIC publishes the full historical dataset back to 1984.

For credit unions, the equivalent report is the NCUA 5300 Call Report, filed quarterly with the National Credit Union Administration. The key metric differs — credit unions use the net worth ratio instead of Tier 1 capital — but the concept is the same.

How to find Call Report data for any bank

The raw Call Report files are available on the FDIC's BankFind Suite, but they're structured for regulatory use — not easy to browse. BankScorer processes this data and surfaces the key metrics on every bank's profile page, with peer comparisons built in.

The Financials browse pagelets you sort all banks by assets, ROA, or filter by financial health. You can also search for a specific bank and find its financial data under the “Call Report Financials” section.

Read more: How to Check if Your Bank Is Financially Safe →