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ABA list of largest farm banks

The American Bankers Association (ABA) says the top ten list of the largest agricultural banks hasn’t changed much in the down farm economy.

ABA research director Brittany Dengler tells Brownfield the quarterly list is based on FDIC data.

“What we do is we go in and take the data (and) look at both the farmland loans; so any type of loan that’s secured by farm real estate.  And also the farm production loans.  We add those two together and the first list will rank the banks by dollar value to the farmers.”

The top five are Wells Fargo, RaboBank, Bank of the West, Bank of America and John Deere Financial.

Dengler says a second list calculates a loan concentration ratio.

“We take those farm real estate loans and farm loans and put it over the bank’s total loan portfolio to calculate their concentration.  Then we produce a list of the top banks by concentration as well.”

Nebraska State Bank in Oshkosh, Nebraska ranked first, followed by banks in North and South Dakota as well as Minnesota in the top five.

Dengler says the same banks are appearing on the lists, even though the economics of farming have changed.

“There’s very little movement within the top ten.  (the banks) might move up or down a few notches, but they’re usually in the same area on the list.”

Dengler says one noticeable impact of lower commodity prices in the ag sector was an increase in lending this year, and ABA expects that to further increase in 2016.