How many FFIEC peer groups are there?

Since February 2026 the UBPR places commercial banks in eight peer groups by asset size, from over $100 billion down to under $50 million. Savings banks have four groups of their own, and credit card banks, bankers' banks, non-deposit trust companies and newly chartered (de novo) banks are grouped separately. Credit unions are not in the UBPR.

How are FFIEC peer groups defined?

By charter type first, then asset size. A $400M community bank is grouped with other commercial banks between $300 million and $1 billion in assets. Until February 2026, commercial banks under $300 million were also split by number of offices and metro location; the FFIEC dropped those splits and now groups them by asset size alone.

What is a percentile rank in a UBPR?

A percentile rank tells you what share of peer-group banks score below the value in question. A bank at the 75th percentile on ROA is outperforming 75% of its peers. A bank at the 20th percentile is being outperformed by 80% of its peers.

Why does the peer group matter?

Because comparing a $400M community bank to industry-wide averages is misleading. JPMorgan's NIM, efficiency, and capital ratios are structurally different from a community bank's. Peer-group percentiles compare each bank to other banks that look like it, which is what makes the comparison useful.

How FFIEC Bank Peer Groups Work

Short answer: The FFIEC groups banks by charter type and asset size. Commercial banks fall into eight size groups, from under $50M to over $100B, and savings banks, credit card banks, bankers' banks, trust companies and de novo banks each have groups of their own. A $400M community bank is compared with other commercial banks between $300M and $1B. Its UBPR shows each ratio beside that group's average, with a percentile rank that tells you where it sits among banks that actually look like it.

Why peer groups exist

Banks of different sizes operate differently. A $200M community bank in rural Iowa funds itself mostly from local core deposits and lends mostly to local small businesses and farms. JPMorgan funds itself through wholesale markets and has trading desks. Comparing them on net interest margin or efficiency ratio is comparing apples to forklifts.

The FFIEC's solution is to slice banks into peer groups where the structural shape of the balance sheet is roughly similar. A bank inside a peer group still has plenty of variation around it, but at least the variation is meaningful.

How peer groups are defined

Two things define a bank's peer group:

Charter and business type. Commercial banks, savings banks, credit card specialty banks, bankers' banks and non-deposit trust companies each have their own groups, and recently opened banks sit in de novo groups by the year they opened. Credit unions file with the NCUA and aren't in the UBPR.
Asset size. The eight commercial bank groups are over $100B, $10B to $100B, $3B to $10B, $1B to $3B, $300M to $1B, $100M to $300M, $50M to $100M, and under $50M.

Until February 2026, commercial banks under $300M were also split by office count and metro location, which made 17 commercial bank groups. The FFIEC dropped those splits in a February 2026 update, leaving eight. If the standard groups don't fit your question, see how to build a bank peer group. The FFIEC's peer group average report is at ffiec.gov/data/ubpr/peer-group-average-report.

What a percentile rank actually means

Every ratio on a UBPR comes with a percentile rank. The percentile is the share of peer-group banks whose value falls below the bank in question. So:

75th percentile on ROA = better than 75% of peers
50th percentile = the median for the group
20th percentile = better than only 20% of peers (worse than 80%)

For ratios where lower is better (like the efficiency ratio or non-performing loans ratio), the percentile is flipped in some references and not in others. Always check the column label. The FFIEC's own UBPR is consistent: percentile means percentile of the value itself, so for "bad" ratios you want a low percentile.

Why this matters for analysis

A lot of bank-comparison content online uses industry-wide averages: "the average ROA for US banks is 1.1%." That number isn't wrong, it's just not useful for analyzing a specific community bank. The mean is dominated by a handful of mega-banks.

Peer-group medians are what regulators, exam teams, and serious analysts use. They compare like to like. They're what makes the difference between "this bank has ROA of 1.05%" (so what?) and "this bank ranks at the 30th percentile of community banks in its asset band on ROA" (now it's a question worth asking).

Anywhere on BankingLENS that you see a percentile, it's a peer-group percentile, not an industry-wide one. That's the whole point.

Common gotchas

A bank's peer group can change. A bank that grows from $950M to $1.1B in assets crosses an asset-band boundary and gets reassigned to a larger peer group. Its percentile rank can shift even if its underlying performance didn't.
Savings banks have their own groups. A savings bank is ranked against other savings banks, and those groups earn noticeably lower returns than commercial banks of the same size. Don't compare across charter types using percentiles.
Specialty institutions have their own groups too. Credit card banks, bankers' banks and trust companies are grouped separately because their ratios look nothing like a community bank's. Leave them out of any custom peer list you build.

How do FFIEC peer groups work?

Why peer groups exist

How peer groups are defined

What a percentile rank actually means

Why this matters for analysis

Common gotchas

Related reading

Peer-aware by default.