Banking Conditions Survey

Special questions

Special Questions

August 2026

For this survey, respondents were asked supplemental questions about outlook concerns, core deposits and lending standards. Data were collected August 4–12, and 62 bankers responded to the survey.

1. What are the top three concerns around your institution’s outlook over the next six months, if any? Please rank in order of importance.

	Feb. '25	May '25	Aug. '25	Nov. '25	Feb.'26	May '26	Aug. '26
	Total (percent)	Total (percent)	Total (percent)	Total (percent)	Total (percent)	Total (percent)	Total (percent)	Rank 1 (percent)	Rank 2 (percent)	Rank 3 (percent)
Fraud				29.9	32.2	55.2	50.0	22.6	16.1	11.3
Financial/economic uncertainty	27.5	64.2	57.1	44.8	35.6	46.6	45.2	11.3	16.1	17.7
Liquidity/deposit volume	42.0	29.9	34.3	29.9	28.8	39.7	37.1	21.0	12.9	3.2
Cybersecurity	39.1	31.3	34.3	29.9	28.8	39.7	37.1	12.9	12.9	11.3
Net interest margin	44.9	22.4	28.6	34.3	25.4	19.0	25.8	8.1	14.5	3.2
Loan demand	23.2	29.9	25.7	25.4	32.2	20.7	21.0	6.5	6.5	8.1
Competition for loans	11.6	23.9	24.3	17.9	27.1	12.1	17.7	4.8	3.2	9.7
Difficulty hiring and/or retaining employees	15.9	9.0	20.0	16.4	22.0	19.0	16.1	3.2	6.5	6.5
Stablecoins/cryptocurrency			11.4	9.0	13.6	6.9	14.5	0.0	8.1	6.5
Overall profitability	27.5	19.4	15.7	14.9	15.3	12.1	9.7	1.6	1.6	6.5
Noncurrent loans	14.5	19.4	7.1	14.9	10.2	6.9	6.5	1.6	0.0	4.8
Regulatory burden	37.7	25.4	22.9	17.9	15.3	10.3	6.5	3.2	0.0	3.2
Commercial real estate risks	7.2	6.0	11.4	7.5	5.1	3.4	6.5	0.0	1.6	4.8
Other	1.4	11.9	2.9	6.0	6.8	3.4	3.2	3.2	0.0	0.0
Unrealized losses on securities portfolio	5.8	6.0	4.3	1.5	1.7	1.7	1.6	0.0	0.0	1.6
Climate/drought							1.6	0.0	0.0	1.6

NOTES: 62 responses.

2. Over the past six weeks, how has your volume of core deposits changed?

	Mar. '24 (percent)	Jun. '24 (percent)	Oct. '24 (percent)	Apr. '25 (percent)	Sep. '25 (percent)	Feb. '26 (percent)	Aug. '26 (percent)
Increased significantly	2.9	2.7	4.1	3.2	1.5	1.7	3.2
Increased slightly	45.6	42.5	50.0	49.2	57.6	54.2	56.5
No change	26.5	28.8	32.4	27.0	22.7	20.3	21.0
Decreased slightly	23.5	26.0	10.8	20.6	18.2	20.3	19.4
Decreased significantly	1.5	0.0	2.7	0.0	0.0	3.4	0.0

NOTES: 62 responses.

3. Over the next six weeks, how do you expect your volume of core deposits to change?

	Mar. '24 (percent)	Jun. '24 (percent)	Oct. '24 (percent)	Apr. '25 (percent)	Sep. '25 (percent)	Feb. '26 (percent)	Aug. '26 (percent)
Increase significantly	1.5	0.0	1.3	3.2	1.5	1.7	3.3
Increase slightly	41.2	47.2	54.7	43.5	58.2	56.9	52.5
No change	29.4	36.1	30.7	37.1	28.4	22.4	32.8
Decrease slightly	27.9	16.7	13.3	16.1	11.9	17.2	11.5
Decrease significantly	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	1.7	0.0

NOTES: 61 responses.

4. To understand the current level of lending standards, consider the range of your institution’s lending standards (easiest to tightest) from 2015 to present. Using this range, how would you describe your institution’s current level of lending standards for the following loan categories?

	Near easiest level (percent)	Significantly easier than midpoint (percent)	Somewhat easier than midpoint (percent)	Near midpoint (percent)	Somewhat tighter than midpoint (percent)	Significantly tighter than midpoint (percent)	Near tightest level (percent)
Commercial and industrial	0.0	1.8	3.6	41.8	30.9	21.8	0.0
Commercial real estate	0.0	0.0	9.3	33.3	35.2	20.4	1.9
Residential real estate	0.0	0.0	6.8	57.6	27.1	6.8	1.7
Consumer	0.0	0.0	10.2	55.9	25.4	6.8	1.7
Overall	0.0	0.0	3.3	51.7	28.3	15.0	1.7

NOTES: 61 responses. This question was most recently posed in Feb. ‘26. For the commercial and industrial, residential real estate and consumer categories, the number of respondents that selected “Not applicable” is 3, 4 and 2, respectively. Percent calculations excluded “Not applicable” respondents.

Special Questions Comments

Survey participants are given the opportunity to submit comments. Some comments have been edited for grammar and clarity.

Of my top 3 concerns, only one is on your list. Mine are assimilating to a new Fed chairman and new monetary approach and how it impacts the yield curve (the answers to that drive a lot of your options listed); the midterm election and its implications for government policy, which is overwhelmingly significant now; and wars and geopolitical risks and how they impact oil, currency, unpredictability and tariffs.
Biggest risk is net interest margin with the possibility of a rate increase soon. Liquidity and deposit volume is also a big concern for us as we have high loan goals for the year and need deposits to fund this without borrowing, and the overall risk of financial/economic uncertainty as mentioned before with oil/[the] midterm. From 2015 to today, our bank has tightened its lending standards in commercial real estate and commercial and industrial loans with more covenants and stricter financial reporting. Consumer loans have been made somewhat easier as we have lowered our minimum credit score.
We have maintained normal underwriting standards.
Looking more closely at second-lien residential real estate (home equity lending) as dollars requested have increased over the period based on home valuations; will potentially consider layering in additional looks for higher dollar/risk loans.

Questions regarding the Banking Conditions Survey can be addressed to Mariam Yousuf at mariam.yousuf@dal.frb.org.