Return on assets (ROA): Return on assets is a bank’s profit measured against the assets it used to earn it.
How it is calculated
Take net income for the period, annualize it, and divide by average total assets. BankingLens averages the current period end against the prior calendar year end, which is the two point basis the FFIEC uses in its own UBPR, so a first quarter figure needs the prior year end balance sheet to exist at all.
Formula
ROA = annualized net income / average total assets
What banks reported in Q2 2026
Across every bank that filed for Q2 2026, the median return on assets was 1.23%, with the middle half between 0.83% and 1.65%. The right comparison is almost always the row for the bank’s own size rather than the industry line.
| Bank size (total assets) | Bottom quartile | Median | Top quartile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under $100M | 0.46% | 1.00% | 1.52% |
| $100M - $300M | 0.78% | 1.22% | 1.67% |
| $300M - $1B | 0.87% | 1.28% | 1.70% |
| $1B - $3B | 0.88% | 1.20% | 1.61% |
| $3B - $10B | 1.07% | 1.34% | 1.63% |
| $10B - $100B | 0.99% | 1.26% | 1.58% |
| Over $100B | 1.03% | 1.20% | 1.41% |
Source: BankingLens, computed from FFIEC call reports for the quarter ending June 30, 2026. Quartiles are calculated across the full population of filing banks in each size band, not sampled. Non-insured non-deposit trust companies are left out of every statistic: they take no deposits and make no loans, so a margin or a funding cost computed for them has no meaning.
How to read it
ROA is the summary number. Every other ratio on a call report eventually lands in it, and it is the fairest comparison across sizes because it does not reward a bank for being thinly capitalized the way return on equity does. Above 1% is a good bank. Sustained readings above 2% usually mean the business model is unusual rather than the management being twice as good, so look at what the loan book holds before reading it as skill.
The common mistake. Judging a bank on one quarter. Securities gains, branch sales, negative provisions after a recovery and tax line one offs all land in net income, and any of them can carry a bank well above its own run rate for a quarter.
Go deeper
- What is a good ROA for a bank?
- BankingLens pricing and what a subscription adds: percentile rank against the bank’s own FFIEC peer group, fourteen quarters of trend, and the flags an examiner reaches for first.
See also. Return on equity, Efficiency ratio, Net interest margin.
Every figure on this page is computed from FFIEC call reports for the quarter ending June 30, 2026 and is not modeled, estimated or sampled. This page is generated by _tools/seo/build_glossary.mjs and carries no figure that was typed in. See our methodology and disclaimer. Definitions are general guidance, not regulatory or investment advice.