For investment committee analysts and bank directors, the tear sheet should answer one decision: approve, decline, or defer pending specific diligence. A bank tear sheet should do more than collect ratios; it should identify the bank, cite the public source for each number, show what changed, and turn weak spots into meeting questions.
Author: Deep Digital Ventures. Last reviewed: April 24, 2026. Sources verified against public FFIEC, FDIC, OCC, CFPB, and Federal Reserve pages listed below.
Copy The Bank Tear Sheet Template
Use this as the one-page template before the meeting. Fill the entry column from public filings first, then add management commentary only where the public record leaves a decision gap.
| Template Row | Entry To Fill | Why It Matters In The Vote |
|---|---|---|
| Decision line | Approve, decline, or defer; named owner; due date; missing evidence | If the decision line is blank, the page is still a research note, not a committee tear sheet. |
| Identity | Legal name, headquarters, charter, primary regulator, FDIC certificate, RSSD ID, holding company, asset size, branch footprint, source checked in FDIC BankFind and NIC [1][2] | A name, charter, or holding-company mismatch should stop the vote until reconciled. |
| Business model | Main lending and funding model; branch, CRE, agricultural, payment, or sponsor-bank exposure | The same capital ratio can mean different things at a branch-funded lender, a CRE-heavy bank, and a fintech sponsor bank. |
| Public filing base | Call Report date, form type, and schedules pulled from FFIEC CDR and current instructions [3][4][5] | The committee should know whether a ratio moved because the bank changed or because the filing basis changed. |
| Eight-quarter trend block | Assets, loans, deposits, liquidity, capital, CRE concentration, past due and nonaccrual loans, net charge-offs, allowance, net interest margin | Direction matters more than a single green ratio. Deterioration turns approval into diligence. |
| Capital and deposits | CET1, tier 1, total risk-based capital, leverage, uninsured deposits, brokered deposits, and available liquidity | Thin cushions, fast deposit repricing, or uninsured concentration should produce a funding question before approval. |
| CRE and credit quality | CRE-to-capital, construction-and-land-to-capital, property type, geography, borrower concentration, past due, nonaccrual, charge-off, and allowance trends | A concentration is not automatically a decline, but it should require portfolio detail and stress assumptions. |
| Third-party and funds-control risk | Sponsor-bank programs, FBO account use, ledger ownership, reconciliation frequency, middleware dependency, termination plan | If no one can explain who controls the customer ledger, defer the vote. |
| Enforcement and open issues | Active orders, order dates, docket numbers, affected business lines, management remediation, committee question | An active order touching the proposed activity should change the vote or add written constraints. |
Core Answer For The Committee
The tear sheet should make six things scannable: identity, business model, eight-quarter trend, peer context, enforcement check, and the risk question that decides the vote. The practical rule is simple: if the source data is current, the business model is understood, the risk flags have owners, and the proposed activity does not conflict with an active order, the committee can consider approval. If one of those pieces is missing, defer with a named owner and a due date.
The one-page format works best when it has three layers: business profile, trend and peer context, and a risk box with named follow-ups. Build the page from public institution lookups, the FFIEC Central Data Repository [3], current Call Report instructions [4], and regulator enforcement pages before adding management commentary.
Lead With The Business Profile
Start with the legal bank name, headquarters, charter type, primary federal regulator, FDIC certificate number, RSSD ID, holding company, asset size, branch footprint, and business model. FDIC BankFind and the Federal Reserve’s National Information Center are the right public lookups for identity and structure [1][2]; the Deep Digital Ventures bank profile lookup and trend pages can then keep that identity check next to financial trend data.
Do not bury the model. A bank that funds local commercial real estate, a rural agricultural lender, and a sponsor bank can report similar capital ratios while carrying different liquidity, compliance, and concentration risks. In this article, a sponsor bank means a chartered bank that supports fintech or embedded-finance programs through deposit accounts, payments, lending, custody, or other third-party arrangements.
For a sponsor-bank review, the profile should say whether the bank supports deposit programs, payment processing, marketplace lending, custodial accounts, or FBO accounts. FBO means for benefit of: the bank may hold an omnibus account while customer-level records sit in another ledger. That is why the template asks who owns reconciliation, who can prove customer balances, and what happens if a program manager or middleware provider fails.
Use regulator documents, not headlines, for named risk flags. Only examples that change a template row belong on the page. If the example does not change the vote, move it to background notes.
| Example | Template Field It Changes | Committee Question |
|---|---|---|
| Blue Ridge Bank OCC consent order, Cross River Bank FDIC consent order, and Federal Reserve action involving Evolve Bancorp and Evolve Bank & Trust [9][10][11] | Enforcement, third-party risk, proposed activity constraints | Does the order touch the activity the committee is being asked to approve? |
| Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, and First Republic Bank 2023 FDIC failed-bank records [12] | Liquidity, uninsured deposits, depositor concentration | What would leave first under stress, and what funding source replaces it? |
| Synapse fund-recordkeeping failure and shortfall allegations [15] | FBO controls, ledger ownership, reconciliation cadence | Who proves the customer-level balance when the nonbank provider fails? |
Show Trends, Not Just Current Ratios
The financial block should name the Call Report schedule beside each metric. The Call Report is the quarterly bank filing formally called the Consolidated Reports of Condition and Income. FFIEC 031 is used by banks with domestic and foreign offices, FFIEC 041 by banks with domestic offices, and FFIEC 051 by eligible smaller domestic banks. The FDIC’s current quarter Call Report page lists March 31, 2026 forms, and FIL-10-2026 said there were no new data items or revisions taking effect that quarter [4][5].
A committee-ready trend block should cover eight quarters where available. Use Schedule RC for the balance sheet, RC-R for regulatory capital, RC-C for loan categories, RC-N for past due and nonaccrual loans, RC-E for deposit liabilities, RC-O for deposit insurance assessment items, RI for income, RI-B for charge-offs and recoveries, RI-C for allowances, and RC-K for average balances used in yield and margin analysis. Define those schedule labels once on the template so the meeting can focus on the decision, not the abbreviations.
- Capital: show common equity tier 1, tier 1, total risk-based capital, and leverage from Schedule RC-R. For FDIC-supervised institutions, 12 CFR 324.403 defines well capitalized using 10.0 percent total risk-based capital, 8.0 percent tier 1 risk-based capital, 6.5 percent common equity tier 1 capital, and 5.0 percent leverage, plus no written agreement, order, capital directive, or prompt corrective action directive requiring a specific capital level [6]. In the meeting, capital should answer whether the bank can absorb the proposed risk without losing flexibility.
- Deposits: show total deposits from Schedule RC and deposit detail from Schedule RC-E, then add uninsured, brokered, and assessment-related fields from Schedule RC-O where applicable. The FDIC’s deposit insurance brochure states the standard maximum deposit insurance amount is $250,000 per depositor, per insured bank, for each account ownership category [7], so a sponsor-bank tear sheet should not imply every end-customer balance is insured without checking ownership records and pass-through requirements. The meeting question is not just how much is uninsured, but how fast can it move?
- Commercial real estate: compare Schedule RC-C loan categories with Schedule RC-R capital. The 2006 interagency CRE guidance says further supervisory analysis may be warranted when construction, land development, and other land loans are 100 percent or more of total capital, or when total CRE loans are 300 percent or more of total capital and the CRE portfolio grew 50 percent or more during the prior 36 months [8]. Treat those as screens, not automatic lending limits.
- Credit quality: pair Schedule RC-N past due and nonaccrual balances with Schedule RI-B net charge-offs and Schedule RI-C allowances. A flat nonperforming-asset ratio with rising net charge-offs is a different meeting topic than a one-quarter delinquency spike with stable loss content. The first asks whether losses are already moving through earnings; the second asks whether a watch-list update is enough.
- Earnings: calculate net interest margin from Schedule RI interest income and expense against Schedule RC-K average earning assets. For a bank with fast deposit repricing, the committee should see whether asset yield is catching up with funding cost or whether margin compression is still moving through the balance sheet.
Here is a practical committee workflow for turning the schedules into a one-page decision record.
| Step | Public Source | Tear Sheet Output | Committee Rule |
|---|---|---|---|
| Confirm identity | FDIC BankFind and NIC [1][2] | Legal name, FDIC certificate, RSSD ID, charter, regulator, holding company | If the name, charter, or holding-company structure does not match the memo, stop until reconciled. |
| Pull filings | FFIEC CDR and FDIC Call Report instructions [3][4] | Eight-quarter table using RC, RC-R, RC-C, RC-E, RC-O, RC-N, RI, RI-B, RI-C, and RC-K | If the filing period or form type is unclear, do not quote the ratio in the decision memo. |
| Check thresholds | 12 CFR 324.403 and 2006 CRE concentration guidance [6][8] | Capital category, CRE-to-capital screen, construction-and-land-to-capital screen | If a supervisory threshold is crossed, require a management explanation and portfolio detail before approval. |
| Check enforcement | FDIC, OCC, and Federal Reserve enforcement pages | Active orders, order dates, docket numbers, affected business lines | If an active order touches the proposed activity, the committee decision should be defer or approve only with written constraints. |
| Write the decision | Analyst notes and meeting record | Approve, decline, or defer with owner, date, and missing evidence | If the follow-up owner is blank, the tear sheet has not finished its job. |
Include A Risk And Question Box
The risk box should be short enough to read in two minutes and specific enough to drive the vote. Use four columns: signal, source, committee question, and follow-up owner. Deposit pressure is too vague; uninsured deposits rising while on-balance-sheet liquidity is falling is a question for treasury, liquidity contingency funding, and depositor concentration.
For sponsor-bank reviews, put third-party risk and funds-control questions in the box. The Interagency Guidance on Third-Party Relationships: Risk Management, issued June 6, 2023, says use of third parties does not remove the bank’s responsibility to operate safely and comply with law [13]. FDIC FIL-42-2024 is also relevant for payments-heavy or fintech-heavy banks because it announced proposed AML/CFT program requirements tied to risk assessment and the national AML/CFT priorities [14].
Synapse is the clean example for why a sponsor-bank tear sheet needs an operational question, not just a capital ratio. The CFPB’s public action states that Synapse Financial Technologies, Inc. filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on April 22, 2024, and alleged that recordkeeping failures left a shortfall between consumer balances and partner-bank records of between $60 million and $90 million [15]. A committee reviewing a sponsor bank should therefore ask who controls customer ledger reconciliation, how often FBO balances are matched to bank records, and what happens if a middleware provider fails.
For CRE-heavy banks, the risk box should cite property type, geography, borrower concentration, non-owner-occupied exposure, and the source schedule. If total CRE is near 300 percent of total capital, or construction and land development loans are near 100 percent of total capital, the committee should ask for stress assumptions before voting on an investment, partnership, or credit exposure. A strong answer names vacancy, cap-rate, maturity, and refinancing assumptions, not just a management view that the market is stable.
Keep The Format Consistent
Use the same sections at every meeting: identity, business model, eight-quarter trends, peer context, enforcement check, risk box, and decision. The template should change only when the source data or committee decision process changes, not because a different analyst prepared the page.
The source line is part of the format. Write the Call Report date, form type, schedule names, and instruction version in small text on the tear sheet. FIL-10-2026 said there were no new data items or revisions taking effect in the March 31, 2026 FFIEC 031, 041, or 051 Call Report forms, while the instructions listed on the FDIC page were still marked as most recently updated December 31, 2025 [4][5]. That distinction helps a committee know whether a ratio moved or the reporting basis changed.
Peer selection should be explicit. A $2 billion community bank with heavy CRE exposure should not be compared only with nationwide sponsor banks, and a payments sponsor should not be judged only against branch-funded lenders. Pick peers by asset size, charter, geography, lending mix, deposit model, and regulator before showing percentile movement.
A useful decision rule is simple: approve only when the source data is current, the business model is understood, any active enforcement order has been read, and threshold breaches have a named mitigation. If one of those four items is missing, the committee should defer with a named owner and a due date instead of recording a soft approval. The template’s job is to make that discipline visible.
FAQ
Which Call Report schedules belong on a bank tear sheet?
Use RC for the balance sheet, RC-R for capital, RC-C for loans, RC-E for deposits, RC-O for deposit insurance assessment items, RC-N for past due and nonaccrual assets, RI for income, RI-B for charge-offs and recoveries, RI-C for allowances, and RC-K for quarterly averages. The schedule label should sit next to the metric so another analyst can reproduce the number.
Are the CRE 100 percent and 300 percent thresholds hard lending limits?
No. The 2006 interagency CRE guidance says those criteria may identify institutions for further supervisory analysis [8]. For a committee, that means the tear sheet should trigger a better question: what property types, geographies, borrowers, risk grades, and stress assumptions explain the concentration?
What should a committee look for first in a sponsor-bank tear sheet?
Start with regulator, active orders, third-party risk controls, deposit structure, and reconciliation ownership. Capital matters, but a fintech partnership can fail operationally if customer ledgers, FBO records, compliance duties, and termination plans are unclear.
Can public data fully explain deposit stability?
No. Public Call Report data helps, but it does not fully describe depositor behavior, customer concentration, or the contractual stickiness of program deposits. That gap is why the FDIC’s 2024 Request for Information on deposits asked for comment on more detailed deposit data that is not currently reported in the Call Report or other regulatory reports [16].
Sources
- [1] FDIC BankFind Suite API documentation – https://api.fdic.gov/banks/docs
- [2] Federal Reserve National Information Center – https://www.ffiec.gov/npw
- [3] FFIEC Central Data Repository – https://cdr.ffiec.gov/public/
- [4] FDIC current quarter Call Report forms, instructions, and related materials – https://www.fdic.gov/bank-financial-reports/current-quarter-call-report-forms-instructions-and-related-materials
- [5] FDIC FIL-10-2026, Consolidated Reports of Condition and Income for First Quarter 2026 – https://www.fdic.gov/news/financial-institution-letters/2026/consolidated-reports-condition-and-income-first-quarter
- [6] 12 CFR 324.403 prompt corrective action capital categories – https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/12/324.403
- [7] FDIC deposit insurance brochure, Your Insured Deposits – https://www.fdic.gov/resources/deposit-insurance/brochures/insured-deposits
- [8] OCC Bulletin 2006-46, Interagency Guidance on CRE Concentration Risk Management – https://www.occ.gov/news-issuances/bulletins/2006/bulletin-2006-46.html
- [9] OCC enforcement action, Blue Ridge Bank, N.A. – https://www.occ.gov/static/enforcement-actions/eaAA-ENF-2023-68.pdf
- [10] FDIC consent order, Cross River Bank – https://orders.fdic.gov/sfc/servlet.shepherd/document/download/0693d000007xEStAAM?operationContext=S1
- [11] Federal Reserve enforcement action, Evolve Bancorp, Inc. and Evolve Bank & Trust – https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/enforcement20240614a.htm
- [12] FDIC 2023 bank failures in brief – https://www.fdic.gov/resources/resolutions/bank-failures/in-brief/2023
- [13] FDIC FIL-29-2023, Interagency Guidance on Third-Party Relationships: Risk Management – https://www.fdic.gov/news/financial-institution-letters/2023/fil23029.html
- [14] FDIC FIL-42-2024, proposed AML/CFT program requirements – https://www.fdic.gov/news/financial-institution-letters/2024/issuance-anti-money-launderingcountering-financing
- [15] CFPB enforcement action, Synapse Financial Technologies, Inc. – https://www.consumerfinance.gov/enforcement/actions/synapse-financial-technologies-inc/
- [16] FDIC FIL-48-2024, Request for Information on Deposits – https://www.fdic.gov/news/financial-institution-letters/2024/request-information-deposits