Commercial Banks' Borrowing from the Federal Home Loan Bank

Since 1990, when commercial banks were first eligible to join the Federal Home Loan Bank System, they have become an important constituency of the FHLBs. Currently, seven out of 10 banks are members, and nearly half of all banks have advances outstanding. Given the wide range of activities that commercial banks can engage in, this Commentary asks whether FHLB lending to them is consistent with their traditional housing finance mission, with the Gramm-Leach-Bliley extension of their mission to provide liquidity support to community banks, or with both.