U.S. Banks Return on Assets (FDIC, Quarterly)

## What this measures

Net income after taxes and extraordinary items in the quarter, annualized, as a percent of average total assets, for all FDIC-insured institutions.

## Why it matters

Earnings are banks’ first line of defense against losses and the source of the capital that lets them lend. Industry return on assets was negative in four quarters of 2008–2009 and dipped in the first half of 2020.

## How to read it

Higher is better. Quarterly readings are noisy: one-off items such as goodwill write-downs or a large bank’s legal charge can swing a single quarter. Compare with the share of unprofitable banks (credit.banks.qbp.unprofitable_share).

## What it does not say

It covers FDIC-insured commercial banks and savings institutions (insured branches of foreign banks are left out), not credit unions or nonbank lenders. It is an industry figure: the largest banks move it most, and it says nothing about any one bank. The FDIC revises recent quarters as banks amend their Call Reports.

## Source

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Quarterly Banking Profile, "QBP time series spreadsheets" workbook (sheet "Ratios by Asset Size Groups", block "Quarterly Return on Assets", row "All Insured Institutions"), linked from fdic.gov/quarterly-banking-profile each quarter. Public domain: the FDIC data catalog (fdic.gov/data.json) licenses its banking data under the U.S. public domain label, use restriction "Unrestricted". Source: FDIC. Refreshed weekly by /api/cron/credit-banks-sync, which re-reads the full history from the newest QBP.