The Equipment Leasing and Finance Association's CapEx Finance Index, released April 28, 2026, reported the equipment finance industry's strongest quarter on record. New business volume rose 18.6% year-to-date and 12.5% year-over-year on a non-seasonally adjusted basis. ELFA expects 2026 to exceed 2024's all-time annual record.

The FDIC Call Report aggregate, summed across 4,278 banks at March 31, 2026, shows bank-channel lease financing receivables of $120.48 billion, up 0.17% year-over-year and down 1.82% quarter-over-quarter. The two readings are not contradictory. They describe the same industry from different vantage points.

New Business Volume: ELFA's MLFI-25 Reads $10.8 Billion in March

Total NBV among ELFA's 25 reporting members was $10.8 billion in March 2026 on a seasonally adjusted basis, down 1.8% from $11.0 billion in February. Quarterly NBV registered the highest dollar figure in the survey's history. Industry credit approval rates ticked up to 77.2%.

  • Bank-segment approval rates: Declined 0.2 percentage points
  • Captive approval rates: Rose 0.8 percentage points
  • Independent rates: Unchanged

ELFA's Monthly Confidence Index dropped from 61.0 in March to 54.6 in April, the lowest reading since May 2025. ELFA President and CEO Leigh Lytle:

"I wouldn't be surprised to see some deterioration in demand heading into the summer."

Bank-Channel Lease Balance: $120.48 Billion at March 31

The aggregate of FDIC Schedule RC-C Item 10 across all U.S. banks:

  • Q1 2025: $120.27 billion (+0.18% QoQ)
  • Q2 2025: $120.14 billion (-0.11% QoQ)
  • Q3 2025: $121.63 billion (+1.24% QoQ, +2.45% YoY)
  • Q4 2025: $122.72 billion (+0.90% QoQ, +2.22% YoY)
  • Q1 2026: $120.48 billion (-1.82% QoQ, +0.17% YoY)

The Q1 2026 sequential decline of $2.24 billion is the largest single-quarter contraction in the nine quarters EF News has analyzed.

Why the Two Readings Do Not Contradict

ELFA measures new originations, a flow. The FDIC sum measures outstanding lease receivables, a stock. Strong origination flow combined with heavy amortization on the legacy book can produce flat or declining stock even as new volume sets records.

Sample composition also differs. ELFA's 25 members include captives and independents that do not file FDIC Call Reports, plus non-bank subsidiaries of bank holding companies that consolidate at the holding-company level rather than at any individual bank charter.

Bank Participants: 45 Net Exits in Twelve Months

The count of banks reporting any positive lease balance fell from 723 at Q1 2025 to 678 at Q1 2026, a net decline of 45. The prior calendar-year window (Q4 2023 to Q4 2024) recorded 18 net exits. The pace accelerated.

The contraction concentrates in the long tail:

  • Banks above $1M lease balance: 417 (Q1 2025) to 411 (Q1 2026), net -6
  • Banks above $10M lease balance: 205 (Q1 2025) to 200 (Q1 2026), net -5
  • Banks above $100M lease balance: 87 (Q1 2025) to 83 (Q1 2026), net -4

Most of the 45 net exits sit at portfolios under $1 million.

Concentration: Top 10 Lessors Hold 65.3%

Top 10 bank lessors at Q1 2026 held $78.67 billion of $120.48 billion, or 65.3%. That share has risen 3.0 percentage points since Q4 2022. Top 50 share is 90.7%.

  • 1. Bank of America: $23,906M | Lease/Loans 1.98%
  • 2. Wells Fargo Bank: $15,511M | Lease/Loans 1.57%
  • 3. U.S. Bank: $8,094M | Lease/Loans 2.01%
  • 4. PNC Bank: $7,106M | Lease/Loans 2.05%
  • 5. Huntington National Bank: $5,808M | Lease/Loans 3.06%
  • 6. TD Bank: $4,474M | Lease/Loans 2.70%
  • 7. City National Bank: $4,118M | Lease/Loans 5.92%
  • 8. Fifth Third Bank: $3,524M | Lease/Loans 1.98%
  • 9. EverBank: $3,381M | Lease/Loans 9.04%
  • 10. M&T Bank: $2,750M | Lease/Loans 1.96%

Two of the top ten, City National Bank and EverBank, carry lease-to-loans ratios well above the money-center peer set, reflecting a specialty-lessor charter profile.

Credit Metrics: ELFA Loss Rate Increase Corroborated

ELFA reported overall loss rate at 0.62%, up 0.07 percentage points, with all three lessor channels showing month-over-month increases. The FDIC loan-weighted average net charge-off ratio across banks with populated credit fields rose 10 basis points year-over-year, from 0.060% at Q1 2025 to 0.163% at Q1 2026. Both data sources show year-over-year credit cost increases of similar magnitude.

ELFA reported bank-segment delinquency up 0.4 percentage points. The FDIC loan-weighted 30-89 day past due ratio across all U.S. banks fell 6 basis points year-over-year, from 0.381% to 0.323%. The two figures use different denominators (lease receivables vs. total loans), different scope (25 reporting bank-segment lessors vs. all U.S. banks), and different past-due definitions (total delinquency vs. 30-89 day bucket). The methodological gap is sufficient to explain the directional difference.

Inference: ELFA's record quarter is being produced by a smaller, more concentrated set of participants. The volume growth flows to the largest bank lessors, to non-bank operating subsidiaries of bank holding companies whose activity does not appear in Call Report aggregation, and to captives and independents that do not file Call Reports at all. The two data sources together describe an industry compressing into fewer, larger platforms while setting volume records.