The unique number the FDIC assigns to each bank and savings institution, used to identify it in FDIC records.
The FDIC certificate number, often shortened to cert, is defined in the FDIC’s own data files as a unique number assigned by the FDIC to identify an institution. Each bank and savings institution in the FDIC’s records has one. Credit unions do not; they carry an NCUA charter number.
It matters in a loan search because bank names repeat. Many banks share names such as First National Bank or Farmers State Bank, and a bank’s legal name can differ from the name on its branches. If you are checking a lender’s call report, its branch list or its SBA lending record, the cert is the way to be sure every record belongs to the same institution. Write it down next to the name when you build a list of banks to contact.
The cert identifies the chartered bank, not its parent. A holding company that owns three banks has three certs. After a merger, an old cert on a document can point to a bank that no longer operates under that name, so check the number against the FDIC’s current record.
How it shows up in the data here
Every bank and savings institution here carries its FDIC certificate number, and its lender ID is built from it (FDIC- followed by the number). The number is how call report balances, branch lists and SBA 7(a) loans are tied to one institution. It is listed on each lender page with a link to the FDIC's own record. Start from search, or see the data dictionary for the identity fields.
Go further
- Search banks: Each result carries its FDIC certificate number.
- Data dictionary: The identity fields: certificate, RSSD ID, LEI.
- How to read a bank call report as a loan searcher: Every bank files a call report each quarter. One schedule in it lists the bank's loans by kind. Read that schedule and you know what the bank holds. You still do not know what it made last quarter.
- How to pick banks for a deal with public data: Public filings cannot tell you which bank will say yes. They can tell you which banks are large enough, already hold loans like yours and lend where the property is. That is enough to turn four thousand banks into six phone calls.
Related terms
- RSSD ID: The unique number the Federal Reserve assigns to a bank, credit union, holding company or other financial entity as its identifier in Federal Reserve records.
- Legal Entity Identifier (LEI): A unique 20-character code, issued under the ISO 17442 standard, that identifies a legal entity anywhere in the world.
- NCUA charter number: The number NCUA uses to identify a credit union in its records and call report files. It is the surest way to tell apart credit unions with similar names.
- Call report: The financial report every bank and savings association files with its federal regulator each quarter, with a balance sheet, an income statement and schedules that break out loans by kind.
- Savings institution: A savings institution is a savings association or savings bank: a deposit-taking lender whose charter grew out of home mortgage lending.
Sources
Plain definitions for orientation, not legal, tax or credit advice. A lender's own policy decides what it will do.