Billing Code: 8070-01-P

FEDERAL HOUSING FINANCE AGENCY
[No. 2022-N-1]
Notice of Annual Adjustment of the Cap on Average Total Assets that Defines
Community Financial Institutions
AGENCY: Federal Housing Finance Agency.
ACTION: Notice.
SUMMARY: The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) has adjusted the cap on
average total assets that is used in determining whether a Federal Home Loan Bank
(Bank) member qualifies as a “community financial institution” (CFI) to $1,323,000,000,
based on the annual percentage increase in the Consumer Price Index for all urban
consumers (CPI-U), as published by the Department of Labor (DOL). These changes
took effect on January 1, 2022.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Janna Bruce, Division of Federal
Home Loan Bank Regulation, (202) 649-3202, Janna.Bruce@fhfa.gov; or Lindsay
Spadoni, Senior Counsel, (202) 649-3634, Lindsay.Spadoni@fhfa.gov, (not toll-free
numbers), Federal Housing Finance Agency, Constitution Center, 400 Seventh Street,
SW, Washington, DC 20219.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I.

Statutory and Regulatory Background
The Federal Home Loan Bank Act (Bank Act) confers upon insured depository

institutions that meet the statutory definition of a CFI certain advantages over non-CFI
insured depository institutions in qualifying for Bank membership, and in the purposes
for which they may receive long-term advances and the collateral they may pledge to

secure advances.1 Section 2(10)(A) of the Bank Act and § 1263.1 of FHFA’s regulations
define a CFI as any Bank member the deposits of which are insured by the Federal
Deposit Insurance Corporation and that has average total assets below the statutory cap.2
The Bank Act was amended in 2008 to set the statutory cap at $1 billion and to require
FHFA to adjust the cap annually to reflect the percentage increase in the CPI-U, as
published by the DOL.3 For 2021, FHFA set the CFI asset cap at $1,239,000,000, which
reflected a 1.2 percent increase over 2020, based upon the increase in the CPI-U between
2019 and 2020.4
II.

The CFI Asset Cap for 2022
As of January 1, 2022, FHFA increased the CFI asset cap to $1,323,000,000,

which reflects a 6.8 percent increase in the unadjusted CPI-U from November 2020 to
November 2021. Consistent with the practice of other Federal agencies, FHFA bases the
annual adjustment to the CFI asset cap on the percentage increase in the CPI-U from
November of the year prior to the preceding calendar year to November of the preceding
calendar year, because the November figures represent the most recent available data as
of January 1st of the current calendar year. The new CFI asset cap was obtained by
applying the percentage increase in the CPI-U to the unrounded amount for the preceding
year and rounding to the nearest million, as has been FHFA’s practice for all previous
adjustments.
In calculating the CFI asset cap, FHFA uses CPI-U data that have not been
seasonally adjusted (i.e., the data have not been adjusted to remove the estimated effect
of price changes that normally occur at the same time and in about the same magnitude
every year). The DOL encourages use of unadjusted CPI-U data in applying “escalation”

See 12 U.S.C. 1424(a), 1430(a).
See 12 U.S.C. 1422(10)(A); 12 CFR 1263.1.
3 See 12 U.S.C. 1422(10)(B); 12 CFR 1263.1 (defining the term “CFI asset cap”).
4 See 86 FR 6650 (Jan. 22, 2021).
1
provisions such as that governing the CFI asset cap, because the factors that are used to
seasonally adjust the data are amended annually, and seasonally adjusted data that are
published earlier are subject to revision for up to five years following their original
release. Unadjusted data are not routinely subject to revision, and previously published
unadjusted data are only corrected when significant calculation errors are discovered.

Louis M. Scalza,
Acting Deputy Director, Division of Federal Home Loan Bank Regulation,
Federal Housing Finance Agency.
[FR Doc. 2022-00197 Filed: 1/7/2022 8:45 am; Publication Date: 1/10/2022]