In short, the answer to the question posed in the headline above is yes and no. The Federal Reserve’s Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices (SLOOS) has long measured credit conditions being created by banks and in its January 2024 edition, the report indicated a positive trend, but the devil is in the details.

The chart below show how banks are tightening credit conditions to mid-sized and larger firms. As the charts show, in the last year, we’ve graduated from a rate of credit tightening only seen in times of severe financial strain (dot com bubble burst, the Global Financial Crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic). Based on the chart, things appear to be on the mend, right?