Holding its ground at home
Citizens Equity First Credit Union leads the Peoria market, followed by Flat Branch Mortgage. Better Banks kept its share there even as its own loans fell. Outside Peoria its shares are tiny.
Applications / Mortgage Analytics / Lenders / Illinois / Better Banks
Better Banks
Peoria, IL · State non-member bank · FDIC · $433 million assets · 146 loans in 2025
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146
loans originated, 2025
173
applications, 2025
3
states and territories
0
gaps bigger than at similar lenders
Our analysis, 2025
Better Banks held 1.7% of the Peoria, IL market in both 2024 and 2025, ranking 12 of 289 lenders in a place it has served since at least 1990.
Back to its usual size
Its loans fell 5%, to 146, while similar lenders (state non-member banks making between half and twice as many loans) grew 10%. Its count peaked at 461 in 2020. Since 2022 it has stayed between 146 and 161, close to the 149 of 2018. By that measure, 2020 was the exception.
Smaller loans
Its typical loan was $125,000, against $175,000 at similar lenders, smaller than at about four in five of them. All its loans were conventional; purchases made up 56.8% and refinancing 33.6%.
Fewer loans in poorer neighborhoods
Low- and moderate-income (LMI) borrowers took 32.5% of its loans, against 28.1% at similar lenders, more than at about two-thirds of them. But its share in poorer neighborhoods fell from 19.1% to 9.6%, lower than at about four in five peers. On 146 loans a handful of loans moves that share, and the areas it serves may also play a part.
Similar lenders: same lender type, originations between half and twice the lender's in the data year. Written from the 2025 HMDA data and checked figure by figure against it.
FIG. 1 — LOANS ORIGINATED, 2018–2025
146 loans in 2025, against a peak of 461 in 2020.
Originated means the loan was made: applications denied, withdrawn or not accepted are not counted. Better Banks took 173 applications in 2025.
SOURCE: FFIEC HMDA, LOANS ORIGINATED (ACTION TAKEN: LOAN ORIGINATED)
FIG. 2 — PRODUCT MIX, 2025
56.8% of its 2025 loans were purchase loans; all were conventional loans.
Purchase 56.8% · Refinance 33.6% · Other 6.8% · Home improvement 2.7%
Conventional 100.0% · of 146 loans. Purchase: buying a home. Refinance: replacing an existing mortgage, including cash-out. FHA: insured by the Federal Housing Administration. VA: guaranteed by the Department of Veterans Affairs. Conventional: neither.
SOURCE: FFIEC HMDA 2025, LOANS ORIGINATED
Where it lends, 2025
3 states, 4 metros, 12 counties
| State | Loans | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Illinois | 143 | 97.9% |
| Missouri | 2 | 1.4% |
| Florida | 1 | 0.7% |
Largest metro areas, 2025
Loans originated
| Metro area | Loans |
|---|---|
| Peoria | 133 |
| Kansas City | 2 |
| Cape Coral-Fort Myers | 1 |
| Springfield | 1 |
Identifiers
| LEI (Legal Entity Identifier, the global company code HMDA has used since 2018) | 254900UAJ26M2YIF0822 | 2018–2025 |
| RSSD (the Federal Reserve's identifier for banks and their parents) | 851631 | 2004–2023 |
| Respondent ID (the HMDA filer code before 2018) | 31808 | 1990–2017 |
Established 1 January 1898. Reported under HMDA 1990-2025.
Mergers, name changes, data editions and corrections: Better Banks's data.
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Better Banks and its peers, 2018–2025: every application in the HMDA data, cleaned and corrected, as Parquet files, with the Jenner programs that made these pages.
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