Open any bank profile in this directory and you will see a handful of headline numbers — total assets, total deposits, a branch count, and for credit unions, a member count. They look simple, but each measures something specific, and knowing what they include (and exclude) lets you size up any institution accurately and compare a small community bank to a megabank without being misled. This guide explains exactly what those figures mean and where they come from.
Total assets: the standard yardstick
When analysts, regulators and journalists rank banks “by size,” they almost always mean total assets. It is the single most widely used measure of how big a bank is. Total assets is the sum of everything the bank owns and is owed, including:
- Loans — mortgages, auto loans, business and commercial loans, credit-card balances. For most banks this is the largest single category, because lending is the core business.
- Securities — investments such as U.S. Treasury and agency bonds the bank holds to earn interest and manage liquidity.
- Cash and reserves — vault cash and balances held at the Federal Reserve.
- Plus premises, equipment and other miscellaneous holdings.
It may feel odd that a loan counts as something the bank owns, but from the bank’s perspective a loan is an asset: it is money other people owe back, with interest. That is why total assets is a fairer size measure than, say, deposits alone — it captures the full scale of the balance sheet.
Where the numbers come from
These figures are not estimates or marketing claims. Every U.S. bank is required to file a detailed Call Report (formally the Consolidated Reports of Condition and Income) with its regulators every quarter. The FDIC publishes that data, and it is the source for the asset, deposit and income numbers you see throughout this site. Credit unions file an equivalent quarterly Call Report with the NCUA. Because the reporting is standardized and mandatory, the same fields are directly comparable across thousands of institutions.
A note on “reported in thousands”
Bank financial data in the FDIC and NCUA Call Reports is reported in thousands of dollars. A figure shown as 1,000,000 in the raw data therefore means $1 billion, not one million dollars. We convert these to readable dollar amounts on each profile, but if you ever pull the underlying government files yourself, remember to multiply by 1,000. It is the single most common mistake people make when reading raw bank data.
Total deposits vs. total assets
Total deposits is the money customers have placed with the bank — checking, savings, money-market and CD balances. Deposits are usually a bank’s largest source of funding and are typically smaller than total assets, because banks also fund themselves through borrowing and capital. The relationship between the two tells you how a bank is built: a traditional retail bank is funded mostly by deposits, while some institutions rely more heavily on wholesale borrowing.
Deposits also come in two flavors that matter for safety: insured and uninsured. Federal deposit insurance covers up to $250,000 per depositor, per insured bank, per ownership category. Balances above that threshold are uninsured. A bank with a high share of uninsured deposits can be more vulnerable if nervous large depositors pull their money quickly — a dynamic that played a central role in the 2023 bank failures. To understand how the coverage works and how to stay within it, read our guide to FDIC & NCUA deposit insurance.
Branch count — and why it can mislead
The branch count is the number of physical offices a bank operates, drawn from the FDIC’s Summary of Deposits. For a traditional bank it is a rough proxy for retail footprint. But branch count is a poor measure of size, and the reason is the rise of digital banking. An internet-only bank can hold tens of billions of dollars in assets with a single office or none at all, while a small community bank might run dozens of branches yet be a fraction of the size in assets. Always read branch count alongside assets and deposits, never on its own. For more on this divergence, see our guide to online banks and neobanks.
Members: the credit-union measure
Credit unions report members rather than shareholders, because each member is a part-owner of the cooperative. Member count is a useful scale indicator for a credit union, much as branch count is for a bank, but the truest size comparison is still total assets — which both banks and credit unions report on the same basis. That lets you line up a large credit union against a bank of similar assets directly.
ROA and ROE in one minute
Two profitability ratios show up in bank data and are worth a quick definition:
- ROA (Return on Assets) — annual profit divided by total assets. It answers, “how much profit does the bank squeeze out of every dollar it controls?” For banks, an ROA around 1% is broadly considered healthy.
- ROE (Return on Equity) — annual profit divided by shareholders’ equity. It answers, “how good a return does the bank earn on the owners’ money?”
ROA lets you compare a small bank and a large bank fairly, because it scales by size. ROE rewards efficient use of capital but can be flattered by heavy leverage, so the two are best read together.
Comparing a community bank to a megabank fairly
It is tempting to dismiss a $400 million community bank next to a $3 trillion giant, but raw size is not quality. The fair approach is to compare ratios, not just totals: ROA, capital levels, and the share of insured deposits put a tiny bank and a behemoth on the same footing. A well-run community bank can post a stronger ROA than a sprawling national one. Size tells you scale and reach; ratios tell you health and efficiency. Use total assets to understand the league an institution plays in, then use the ratios to judge how well it plays.
The long tail of American banking
One of the most striking facts you will notice browsing the data is the shape of the industry. A tiny handful of megabanks — led by JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo — hold a large share of all U.S. bank assets. Behind them stretches a very long tail of thousands of small and mid-sized community banks and credit unions, which this directory catalogues in full. America has far more banks per capita than most countries, a direct legacy of the dual banking system and historical limits on interstate branching. To see the totals, distributions and state-by-state breakdowns, visit our U.S. banking statistics.
Key takeaways
- Total assets is the standard measure of bank size — it includes loans, securities and cash, and comes from mandatory quarterly Call Reports.
- Raw Call Report figures are reported in thousands of dollars; multiply by 1,000 when reading government source files.
- Deposits are usually smaller than assets and split into insured vs. uninsured — the uninsured share is a key risk signal.
- Branch count is a poor size proxy: a digital bank can be huge with almost no branches.
- Compare institutions with ratios like ROA, not just totals, so a community bank and a megabank can be judged on the same footing.
- The industry is a few giants plus a long tail of thousands of community institutions — explore them in the statistics.
Want to know which numbers we use and exactly how we source them? Read our methodology and data sources, then put it into practice with our guide on how to choose a bank or credit union.