What You Should Know About Loan Participation Accounting

By July 26, 2022Blog

If you’re a banker, you are probably curious about loan participation accounting. It is an essential part of determining your loan’s true worth. The purchaser and originator of the loan both want to see the true sale of the participating interest in the loan. However, when it comes to accounting for loan participation, you should remember that there are several different rules that apply. Read on to find out more about loan participation accounting. Here are a few of them:

Bank’s Obligations to Participant

As a bank, a participating company in loan participation accounting has certain rights and obligations. The Bank is required to pay payments promptly and shall apply the money received from a Participant’s loan to the bank account designated by the Participant. However, the Participant may be required to provide written instructions to the Bank on how to receive payments from the Bank. Listed below are some of the Bank’s obligations to a Participant in loan participation accounting.

In addition to the requirements for loan participation, banks must be aware of the potential consequences of changing FASB standards. In addition to ensuring that loan participations are compliant with the new standards, banks must make sure that their participation agreements contain specific provisions that protect them from adverse consequences. To prevent such a problem, banks should review participation agreements and implement a process to review them before entering into a loan participation.

In addition, loan participations can be beneficial to community banks when the lead bank maintains control of large customer relationships. However, lending limits and capital adequacy issues should be carefully considered before entering into a participation agreement. To understand the benefits and drawbacks of loan participations, banks should take the time to review the FDIC’s guidelines on loan participation accounting. It can help them decide if loan participations are right for them.

In today’s competitive financial environment, loan participations have become an important tool for community banks. They provide liquidity to the financial system by enabling banks to participate in loan transactions, purchase interest in the loans, and transfer funds to the originating bank in exchange for cash payments. By following these guidelines, participating banks can minimize the risks and maximize the profit of their lending operations. If a bank can meet these requirements, it will remain competitive.

Bank’s Share of Collections

A bank’s share of collections in loan participation accounting is determined by the amount of its participation in the total collection of the customer’s loans. Before, loan participations were commonly structured using the Last-In-First-Out (LIFO) or First-In-Last-Out (FILO) method. These accounting variations were used by lead banks to facilitate the sale of loan participations, but these practices do not meet the new requirement that loan participation ownership is structured on a pro-rata basis.

Lenders should make sure their loan participation agreements contain a clause protecting them from potential liability for losses or adjusting the lender’s share of collections. A loan participation agreement should specify the role of the lead institution and define how its participation obligations should be measured. It should also state the rights and responsibilities of each party, including dispute resolution procedures. These provisions are crucial in loan participation accounting. Moreover, banks must comply with the lending restrictions of the government when entering into loan participation agreements. One exceptional feature of BankLabs Participate platform is the built-in NDA and loan agreement documents. Of course, there is always an option to upload and use your own custom document if you need. 

Tracking Transactions

Whether the Bank’s Share of Interest in a Loan Participation is deductible in the Accounting Book or Balance Sheet is a question you might have. Loan participations are financial products in which the Bank participates in a loan and accepts part of the risk for the borrower. Typically, these loans are for small business loans or large commercial real estate loans. Banks can use loan participations for many different purposes, including improving their liquidity, interest rate risk management, diversified portfolios, and attracting and retaining customers by serving their credit needs, even if they are above their lending limit.

One of the most difficult tasks when originating and managing loan participation is the back office organization. Keeping track of transactions, dates, approvals, and important loan documentation can be tedious for a loan officer. That is why investing in loan participation management software is so important, especially if you originate multiple loans with multiple institutions participating. 

Even if you participate in several loans, the organizational aspects can get confusing and lost in the inbox. With a central location for all transaction history and dates noted, a loan officer can get a full picture of the status of your bank’s loan portfolio instantly. You can see which will close next and which have already been completed. Custom reports also help you share this information with your team. Having correspondences in one central location rather than several different inboxes can be a lifesaver and easily pulling up documents with specific accounting information on them with the click of a button can make balancing your accounts easy.