Total assets at FDIC-insured institutions grew $888.03 billion (3.52%) in Q1 2026 to reach $26.145 trillion, the second largest quarterly dollar gain in history trailing only the $1.609 trillion recorded in Q1 2020. The growth was broad-based: net loans and leases climbed $213.42 billion (1.61%), trading assets hit an all-time high of $1.36 trillion, and six loan portfolios reached record balances including non-owner occupied commercial real estate, owner-occupied commercial real estate, and multifamily residential.
Lease financing receivables were the exception. The portfolio fell $2.24 billion (-1.82%) in Q1 2026 to $120.48 billion, per FDIC call report data. That contraction places lease receivables alongside credit cards (-3.58%), junior liens (-13.22%), and farm loans (-5.70%) as the loan categories that shrank in a quarter where most commercial portfolios grew.
The contrast with the broader commercial lending environment is direct. Domestic commercial and industrial loans grew $96.94 billion (4.57%) in Q1 2026, with JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo each growing their C&I portfolios approximately 7% in the quarter. Non-owner occupied commercial real estate grew $11.71 billion (0.97%) for the fifth consecutive quarter. Nondepository financial institution loans grew $80.67 billion (5.14%). Bank-owned lease portfolios contracted while every major commercial category around them expanded.
The Q1 2026 lease figure carries the same data completeness caveat noted in prior EF News analysis. Eighty-three institutions present in the Q4 2025 filing are absent from the Q1 2026 source data, including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citibank, Truist, BNY Mellon, and others collectively holding $43.4 billion in lease receivables at Q4 2025. The $120.48 billion Q1 2026 figure represents the 4,257 institutions that filed, not the full industry. The complete Q1 2026 lease total will be materially higher once all institutions file.
The Q4 2025 matched-set total for those same 4,257 institutions was $122.72 billion, making the quarter-over-quarter decline $2.24 billion on a comparable basis. That decline is real within the filing universe and is not an artifact of the missing institutions.
For equipment finance originators, brokers, and credit officers, the practical read is that bank appetite for lease paper contracted in Q1 2026 at the same time bank appetite for C&I loans expanded sharply. Whether that reflects deliberate portfolio reallocation, credit tightening on lease collateral, or seasonal factors in the lease origination cycle cannot be determined from the aggregate call report data. What the data shows is that the two portfolios moved in opposite directions in a quarter where the overall commercial lending environment was expansionary.