California bank statistics, September 2026: 5th-lowest median bank age

The figures come from the quarterly call reports that every FDIC-insured bank files, recomputed once a month. Each row is one insured charter, and the state is the headquarters state on the charter’s FDIC record, not a list of the states it sells in. Insured US branches of foreign banks and uninsured trust companies also appear in the FDIC financial data, and they are left out.

Rank is taken over the insured banks in that state that filed for the quarter and are still open. A bank that has merged or closed since has no rank. Banks with equal deposits share a rank, so the printed sequence can skip a number, and a state with fewer than eight filers carries no rank and no page.

The rate is derived from the interest expense a bank reports against its savings and money market balance in the quarter, and it is an average over the balance rather than an advertised rate. The median California bank is the median over every insured bank headquartered in California that filed for the quarter and reported a figure. Its line over time follows the same banks back through their own filings, and a quarter where fewer than half of them reported a rate is left out. The median US bank is the median over every bank that filed for the quarter and reported a figure. The Fed's rate is the effective federal funds rate from FRED series EFFR, averaged over each quarter. The rise in consumer prices is the twelve-month change in the CPI for all urban consumers, not seasonally adjusted (FRED series CPIAUCNS), averaged over each quarter.

The US figure beside a state figure is the sum over the 50 states and DC, with the territories left out: for example, all their branches over all their residents, or all their filers in each year. A rank is taken over the same 51, and states with equal values share a rank.

The count of insured banks that filed in the first and the newest year uses the bank’s current headquarters state for both years. The median assets over time follow the banks that are open today back through their own filings, so a bank that closed or merged before today is not in the earlier figures.

The yearly counts of mergers, new charters and failures come from the FDIC history file and the FDIC failed bank list. They count FDIC-insured banks only, by the date each event took effect. A merger counts the bank that was absorbed, once per event. A late FDIC filing can raise the count of an earlier month at the next monthly rebuild.

A retail branch is an office the FDIC records as a full-service brick-and-mortar or retail office (service types 11 and 12). Foreign offices are excluded. The yearly branch counts come from the FDIC Summary of Deposits, which counts the offices in the state on June 30 of each year, whatever the state of the bank that runs them.

A bank must file its call report within 30 days after the quarter ends, or 35 days for a bank with more than one foreign office (Call Report instructions of the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC)). A bank can amend a call report after it files. Each monthly rebuild reads the FDIC files again, so an amended figure replaces the earlier one, and the page and the download change together.