What is NIC? The National Information Center (NIC) provides comprehensive information on banks and other institutions for which the Federal Reserve has a supervisory, regulatory, or research interest including both domestic and foreign banking organizations operating in the U.S. The NIC includes the organizational structure of financial institutions and financial information for some of those institutions. Historical information is available on the structure of all the institutions. Financial information is available for selected time periods.

What system configurations do I need to view reports? Step 1: Make sure that you are running Netscape Browser 4.x/higher or Internet Explorer 4.x/higher. To check the version, go to Help > About Communicator (or Internet Explorer). Step 2: In addition to requiring one of the browsers, your browser will need to accept transient, memory-resident "cookie". For more information, please refer to How do I ensure that the transient, memory-resident "cookie" option, which is used to generate PDF reports, is turned on properly? Step 3: You will need to have Acrobat Reader 4.x/higher installed as a plug-in. In some instances, you are using Acrobat Reader 4.x or higher, but it is not installed as a plug-in. To prevent this problem, you should uninstall the older version of Acrobat Reader before installing the new version, this will ensure that the plug-in has been updated. For Netscape users, a list of plug-ins is provided under Help > About Plug-ins. Look for the Adobe Acrobat plug-in and make sure that the plugin is higher than 4.x version or higher. Step 4: Some reports require Excel 97/2000 Viewer to view.

How often are data updated? “Structure data”, i.e., the institution’s attributes such as name and address, are updated on a weekly basis. Financial data are loaded based on when the data are due to the regulatory institution. There is typically a three-month lag between when quarterly data are due and when they are available. Reported revisions to the financial data are made on a periodic basis.

How do I ensure that the transient, memory-resident "cookie" option, which is used to generate PDF reports, is turned on properly? When you request a PDF report, the site uses a transient, memory-resident "cookie" to generate an identifier that links the requestor with the desired report. Netscape Users: Select Preferences under the Edit menu, which will give you the following screen. Left click Advanced to highlight it. On the right Accept all cookies should be selected as shown in the picture below. Click OK. Internet Explorer Users: Select Internet Options under the Tools menu, which will return the following screen. Click on the Security tab and ensure that Medium security level is selected for the content zone that you are viewing our webpages in. To make certain that Medium is the level that you want you can click on Custom Level and adjust various options. Just make sure that accepting cookies is enabled. Click OK.

How do I save a report to my hard drive? After clicking on the save report link, you will be able to save the FDF document to the location that you prefer. This process is similar to saving files in many windows-based applications. For more information see, What is the FDF file and which application opens it?

What is the FDF file and which application opens it? An Acrobat Forms Data Format (FDF) file contains only the data needed to fill in a standard PDF form, so it's smaller in size and, therefore, more efficient. When you launch a FDF file, Acrobat Reader will launch the external PDF form reference embedded within the FDF file. It will direct your default browser to access the PDF form and fill it in with the FDF data.

Why are there no data in the PDF that I saved? Chances are that while viewing the report you tried to save the PDF and now when you reopen it there are no data. The problem is that the PDF is only the form where the data are sent. The actual data are contained in the FDF file. In order to save the report you will need to click on the save link and download the FDF file.

I am getting the error "Acrobat Weblink"; how should I fix the problem? If you are getting the error message shown below, then the preferences for Acrobat Reader need to be set. To set the preferences, open Acrobat Reader. Under File > Preferences > Weblink, choose the browser under Connection Type. Make sure that the browser you are using meets the System Requirements. Next, either type or browse the location of the browser (netscape.exe or iexplorer.exe)

How do I stop the security warning that I get when I open a file? The first time that a file is opened a dialog box, like the one below, will appear. If you do not wish to be prompted with this dialog box every time you open a file, uncheck the box that states "Always ask before opening this type of file".