BANK LENDING AND INTEREST- RATE DERIVATIVES

Another notable increase occurred in the forward-rate agreement (FRA) usage. FRA is a contract that determines the rate of interest, or currency exchange rate, to be paid or received on an obligation beginning at some future date. At the end of 1996, 9.02 percent of the sample banks report using FRAs. By the end of 2004, the percentage using FRAs more than doubled. While the percentage of banks participating in the swaps and forwards increased over the sample period, the proportion of banks using interest-rate options fell. This decline is most notable between year-end 2000 and year-end 2004. With the...