FR 2644: Weekly Report of Selected Assets and Liabilities (restricted access)

Confidential supervisory data: not exercised here

FR 2644 bank-level data is confidential and collected by the Federal Reserve. The published H.8 aggregates derived from it are public, but the bank-level records carry no provenance badge: there is no access path we can run here. Researchers reach the bank-level data only through a Federal Reserve affiliation or an approved restricted-data arrangement, inside a secure environment, with output subject to disclosure review. The page documents what the collection is and the gotchas; treat it as unverified. This is the honest grade under the institute’s Verified discipline.

FR 2644 (the Weekly Report of Selected Assets and Liabilities of Domestically Chartered Commercial Banks and U.S. Branches and Agencies of Foreign Banks) is the weekly balance-sheet collection from a sample of banks that supports the Federal Reserve’s published H.8 release on commercial-bank assets and liabilities. Key asset and liability categories are reported weekly for domestic banks and FBO branches. A paper we distill uses it: Anderson, Du & Schlusche use FR 2644 weekly bank balance-sheet data for U.S.-based entities (domestic banks and FBO branches) to study balance-sheet adjustments to funding shocks (their balance-sheet regressions use 50 banks with FR 2644 data).

• Cost: not for sale at the bank level. The H.8 aggregates are published free.
• Collector: Federal Reserve Board (the FR 2644 collection, basis of H.8).
• Coverage: a weekly-reporting sample of domestic banks and FBO branches; selected balance-sheet categories. The sample is a panel of reporters, not the full banking system.

Access (restricted)

• The H.8 aggregates are public; the bank-level data is not. The Fed posts the weekly H.8 aggregates; the underlying FR 2644 bank-level records are confidential and are not posted.
• Through a Federal Reserve affiliation or approved program. Bank-level access is limited to researchers at the Federal Reserve System or others granted entry to the restricted data, worked inside a secure environment with output subject to disclosure review.
• The published form and instructions are public, so the field definitions can be read even though the bank-level data cannot be pulled.

Gotchas (the ones that bite pipelines)

These are the failure modes to expect; they are documented, not verified here.

• It is a weekly-reporter sample, not a census. Only sampled banks report weekly, and the published H.8 is estimated by benchmarking the sample to the full population (from the quarterly Call Reports). Bank-level FR 2644 is the sample, not every bank.
• Selected categories only. The report carries selected asset and liability lines, not a full balance sheet; do not expect every Call Report item. Map your variable to the FR 2644 line definition.
• Weekly versus quarterly reconciliation. FR 2644 is weekly while the population benchmark (Call Reports) is quarterly; the two do not line up observation-for-observation. Be explicit about which series you use and why.
• Sample composition changes. The set of weekly reporters is refreshed over time, breaking the panel for non-economic reasons. Track the reporter set for your window.
• Definitions change across vintages. Lines and instructions are revised; a category can change basis between versions. Read the instructions for your sample period.
• Output is disclosure-reviewed and cannot be redistributed. Bank-level results leave the secure environment only after review, and the micro-data itself cannot be shared.

Citation

Cite the collection and collector, e.g.: FR 2644 (Federal Reserve Board), confidential supervisory data; accessed under restricted-data arrangement, YYYY-MM-DD. For the public series, cite the Federal Reserve H.8 release. State the balance-sheet lines, the sample window, and the reporter population for your period.