Charge-Off Rate on All Loans (Banks)

## What this measures

Loans and leases of every kind that U.S. commercial banks wrote off as uncollectible in the quarter, net of recoveries, as an annualized percent of average loans and leases outstanding. Seasonally adjusted.

## Why it matters

It is the broadest read of realized credit losses at banks, across households and businesses, and a clean measure of where the credit cycle stands.

## How to read it

Higher is worse. Read it with the all-loans delinquency rate (fred_dralacbs), which leads it, and with the FDIC’s figure for all insured institutions (credit.banks.qbp.net_charge_off_rate).

## What it does not say

Commercial banks only: no savings institutions, credit unions, finance companies or private credit funds. A charge-off is the bank’s decision to write a loan off, so its timing lags the borrower’s trouble and differs from bank to bank. Seasonally adjusted, annualized, and revised.

## Source

Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Charge-Off and Delinquency Rates on Loans and Leases at Commercial Banks (FRED series CORALACBS). Palanor pulls it from the FRED API (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis) nightly. Federal Reserve Board data are in the public domain.