Derivatives, Hedging Activities and Other Financial Instruments

The Company enters into derivative financial instruments which involve, to varying degrees, interest rate, market and credit risk. The Company manages these risks as part of its asset and liability management process and through credit policies and procedures, seeking to minimize counterparty credit risk by establishing credit limits and collateral agreements. The Company utilizes certain derivative financial instruments to enhance its ability to manage interest rate risk that exists as part of its ongoing business operations. The derivative financial instruments entered into by the Company are an economic hedge of a derivative offering to Bank customers. The Company does not use derivative financial instruments for trading purposes.

Customer Derivatives – Interest Rate Swaps

The Company enters into interest rate swaps that allow commercial loan customers to effectively convert a variable-rate commercial loan agreement to a fixed-rate commercial loan agreement. Under these agreements, the Company enters into a variable-rate loan agreement with a customer in addition to an interest rate swap agreement, which serves to effectively swap the customer’s variable-rate loan into a fixed-rate loan. The Company then enters into a corresponding swap agreement with a third party in order to economically hedge its exposure through the customer agreement. The interest rate swaps with both the customers and third parties are not designated as hedges under FASB Accounting Standards Codification (“ASC”) Topic 815, Derivatives and Hedging, and are marked to market through earnings. As the interest rate swaps are structured to offset each other, changes to the underlying benchmark interest rates considered in the valuation of these instruments do not result in an impact to earnings; however, there may be fair value adjustments related to credit quality variations between counterparties, which may impact earnings as required by FASB ASC Topic 820, Fair Value Measurements. As of December 31, 2018, the Company recognized a loss of $87,000 in other income resulting from a fair value adjustment.

The table below presents the notional and fair value of derivatives not designated as hedging instruments as well as their location on the consolidated statements of financial condition as of December 31, 2018 (in thousands):



	December 31, 2018
Balance Sheet Location	Notional		Fair Value
Other assets	$	59,305	$	1,722
Other liabilities	59,305		1,813

Credit risk-related Contingent Features

The Company is a party to an International Swaps and Derivatives Association agreement with a third party broker-dealer that requires a minimum dollar transfer amount upon a margin call. This requirement is dependent on certain specified credit measures. The amount of collateral posted with the third party at December 31, 2018 was $4.1 million. The amount of collateral posted with the third party is deemed to be sufficient to collateralize both the fair market value change as well as any additional amounts that may be required as a result of a change in the specified credit measures. The aggregate fair value of all derivative financial instruments in a liability position with credit measure contingencies and entered into with the third party was $1.8 million at December 31, 2018.