and the share of community banks that operate primarily in rural markets has increased slightly, from 53 percent to 54 percent. while there are more rural community banks than urban community banks, the latter consistently account for a larger volume of deposits, loans, and offices than the former. this difference is due, in part, to the average size of an urban community bank, in terms of total assets, being about two and a half to three and a half times that of the average rural community bank ( figure 2 ). as community banks have increased in asset size, they have also grown their branch networks. the average number of branches for an urban bank is about 1. 7 to 2 times that of a rural bank ( figure 3 ). looking next at the total amount of deposits held by all urban community banks and all rural community banks, we can see that both have been trending upward over time ( figure 4 ). growth in total loans outstanding was strong for both urban and rural community banks between 1997 and 2008 ( figure 5 ). declines in lending between 2008 and 2011 were more severe for urban community banks than rural ones. coming out of the recent recessions, rural community banks have seen quite modest loan growth since 2011, while the pace of growth in urban community bank lending has been strong since 2013. this divergence in recent growth rates may be due to the fact that the recovery - 7from the recent recession has been much more robust in urban areas than in rural areas of the country. when it comes to performance measures, rural community banks consistently outperform urban community banks with regard to return on assets ( figure 6 ) and return on equity ( figure 7 ). this difference was particularly pronounced during the financial crisis, when profitability fell much more sharply at urban community banks than at rural community banks. looking at charge - off rates ( figure 8 ), we see that they have been quite similar for the two types of community banks over most of the past 20 years, except for the period from 2008 to 2013, when rural community banks had lower charge - off rates than urban community banks. this data suggest that, despite facing a more challenging economic environment, rural community banks appear to be holding their own relative to urban community banks. market - level trends for all banks and community banks now i would like to shift my focus from the banks themselves to the communities they serve by exploring whether access to banking services - - provided by community or larger banks - - has been declining in urban or rural areas

of our current arrangements for cross - border payments. and as this conference amply demonstrates, despite the challenges of this last year, we still have been able to make important progress. i again thank the cpmi and jon cunliffe for their leadership and look forward to working together as we improve these payments for businesses and individuals alike. * this sentence was updated after publication : the phrase " sometime in late 2023 or 2024 " was updated to " sometime in 2023 ". see financial stability board ( 2020 ), enhancing cross - border payments : stage 3 roadmap ( pdf ) ( basel, switzerland : fsb, october ). see board of governors of the federal reserve system ( 2020 ), “ federal reserve announces details of new 24x7x365 interbank settlement service with clearing functionality to support instant payments in the united states, ” press release, august 6. 3 see bank for international settlements ( 2020 ), “ central banks and bis publish first central bank digital currency ( cbdc ) report laying out key requirements, ” press release, october 9. 2 / 2 bis central bankers'speeches