Smaller regulated firms were harder to match to an official website
Within FDIC and SEC RIA records, the smallest size quartile had a lower official website match rate than the largest. The gap belongs to the research record, not provider quality.
The smallest quartile had fewer matched websites in two separate systems.
Size bands were calculated inside each official source so bank assets and adviser AUM were never mixed.
$99.1m median assets99.7%Largest quartile
$2.22bn median assets
$166.9m median AUM97.3%Largest quartile
$10.02bn median AUM
A matched domain was less common among smaller records. It does not mean those firms lacked websites or offered weaker services.
What established research measured, and what this study adds.
The FDIC Community Banking Study documents the distinct role of community banks in local credit markets. SEC statistics also show how widely advisory firms differ by filed assets.
FDIC Community Banking Study ↗ServeAssess found a 5.1 point bank gap and a 6.6 point adviser gap in official website matching between the smallest and largest quartiles.
Smallest and largest size bands
| Source and band | Records | Median size | Website match | Completeness median |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FDIC, smallest quartile | 588 | $99.1m assets | 94.6% | 60 |
| FDIC, largest quartile | 587 | $2.22bn assets | 99.7% | 67 |
| SEC RIA, smallest quartile | 601 | $166.9m AUM | 90.7% | 33 |
| SEC RIA, largest quartile | 600 | $10.02bn AUM | 97.3% | 33 |
Every percentage and rate belongs to the sample, threshold and period shown beside it. A descriptive relationship is not presented as causation.
The bottom line
Among FDIC tagged records with reported assets, 94.6 percent of the smallest quartile had a matched official website, compared with 99.7 percent of the largest quartile. The observed gap was 5.1 percentage points.
Among SEC RIA records with reported regulatory assets under management, the match rate rose from 90.7 percent in the smallest quartile to 97.3 percent in the largest. That gap was 6.6 points.
Size bands kept unlike firms apart
The smallest FDIC quartile contained 588 institutions with median assets of about $99.1 million. The largest contained 587 with median assets of about $2.22 billion.
The SEC RIA comparison used 601 records in the smallest quartile, with median regulatory AUM of about $166.9 million, and 600 in the largest, with median AUM of about $10.02 billion.
The finding is about matching
A missing website in ServeAssess does not show that the institution had no website. It means an official domain had not been confidently attached to that provider record in the snapshot.
Smaller organizations may use less distinctive names, share technology vendors, redirect domains or publish fewer machine readable identity cues. The study did not test which mechanism caused the gap.
Two official systems showed the same direction
The FDIC and SEC RIA samples use different size measures and describe different provider types. Both showed a higher match rate in the largest quartile than the smallest.
That repeated direction makes small provider enrichment a sensible research priority. It does not justify combining the two gaps into one effect estimate.
Why the NCUA records were excluded
The NCUA tagged pipeline had no matched website values in the audited export. Including those records in a size comparison would measure a known pipeline omission rather than an institution size relationship.
Excluding a source for a declared data limitation is preferable to turning missing fields into zeros and producing a misleading cross sector ranking.
Method
FDIC records were limited to positive reported_total_assets_usd values and divided into four equal count bands. SEC RIA records used positive reported_regulatory_assets_under_management_usd values and the same within source quartile method.
Website match meant a nonblank official website field. The study reports the first and fourth quartiles and retains the middle bands in the downloadable table.
Limits
The analysis is descriptive and does not establish that small size caused the match gap. It does not measure website quality, accessibility, price disclosure or customer service.
The SEC and FDIC size variables are not interchangeable. Results should be read within each source and snapshot rather than as a league table between banks and advisers.
Open the underlying records
Every result on this page belongs to the dated sample above. Later catalogue updates do not silently change its denominator.