The American Financial Exchange (AFX), an electronic exchange for direct lending and borrowing for American financial institutions, announced today it now represents 40% of U.S. Minority Depository Institutions (MDIs) by asset size.
Prominent minority depository institutions (as defined by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) that are members of AFX include African American, Asian-American, Hispanic and Native-American banks.
AFX facilitates the determination of AMERIBOR®, a transaction-based interest rate benchmark for financial institutions via its electronic trading platform. The rate is calculated as the weighted average daily volume in the AFX overnight unsecured loan market. The rate is denoted as a 360day annualized percentage rate up to the fifth decimal.
“We applaud AFX as it reaches the milestone of representing forty percent of the assets of U.S. MDIs. As a minority-owned bank, Unity National Bank is acutely aware of the needs of our community and our role in providing capital and creating jobs. AFX and AMERIBOR serve a much-needed segment of banks like ours with a transparent and transaction-based benchmark,” said Dr. Kase Lawal, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Unity National Bank of Texas.
In October of 2019, the National Bankers Association (NBA), the leading minority-owned bank trade association in the US, endorsed AMERIBOR® as an approved rate to be used for loan documentation for its members.
Currently AFX membership across the U.S. includes 177 banks, and 1,000 correspondents, with combined assets of over $5.8 trillion. There are 44 non-banks that include insurance companies, broker-dealers, private equity firms, hedge funds, futures commission merchants, and asset managers.
