In the ordinary course of business in meeting the financial needs of its customers, Valley, through its subsidiary Valley National Bank, is a party to various financial instruments, which are not reflected in the consolidated financial statements. These financial instruments include standby and commercial letters of credit, unused portions of lines of credit and

commitments to extend various types of credit. These instruments involve, to varying degrees, elements of credit risk in excess of the amounts recognized in the consolidated financial statements. The commitment or contract amount of these instruments is an indicator of the Bank’s level of involvement in each type of instrument as well as the exposure to credit loss in the event of non-performance by the other party to the financial instrument. The Bank seeks to limit any exposure of credit loss by applying the same credit policies in making commitments, as it does for on-balance sheet lending facilities.


	2020		2019
	(in thousands)
Commitments under commercial loans and lines of credit	$	5,595,561	$	5,550,967
Home equity and other revolving lines of credit	1,485,911		1,379,581
Standby letters of credit	293,900		296,036
Outstanding residential mortgage loan commitments	244,286		233,291
Commitments to sell loans	155,627		68,492
Commitments under unused lines of credit—credit card	68,735		44,527
Commercial letters of credit	1,663		2,887
Total	$	7,845,683	$	7,575,781

Obligations to advance funds under commitments to extend credit, including commitments under unused lines of credit, are agreements to lend to a customer as long as there is no violation of any condition established in the contract. Commitments generally have specified expiration dates, which may be extended upon request, or other termination clauses and generally require payment of a fee. These commitments do not necessarily represent future cash requirements as it is anticipated that many of these commitments will expire without being fully drawn upon. The Bank’s lending activity for outstanding loan commitments is primarily to customers within the states of New Jersey, New York, and Florida.

Standby letters of credit represent the guarantee by the Bank of the obligations or performance of the bank customer in the event of the default of payment or nonperformance to a third party beneficiary.

Loan sale commitments represent contracts for the sale of residential mortgage loans to third parties in the ordinary course of the Bank’s business. These commitments require the Bank to deliver loans within a specific period to the third party. The risk to the Bank is its non-delivery of loans required by the commitment, which could lead to financial penalties. The Bank has not defaulted on its loan sale commitments.

Valley is exposed to certain risks arising from both its business operations and economic conditions. Valley principally manages its exposure to a wide variety of business and operational risks through management of its core business activities. Valley manages economic risks, including interest rate and liquidity risks, primarily by managing the amount, sources, and duration of its assets and liabilities and, from time to time, the use of derivative financial instruments. Specifically, Valley enters into derivative financial instruments to manage exposures that arise from business activities that result in the payment of future known and uncertain cash amounts, the value of which are determined by interest rates. Valley’s derivative financial instruments are used to manage differences in the amount, timing, and duration of Valley’s known or expected cash receipts and its known or expected cash payments related to assets and liabilities as outlined below.

Cash Flow Hedges of Interest Rate Risk. Valley’s objectives in using interest rate derivatives are to add stability to interest expense and to manage its exposure to interest rate movements. To accomplish this objective, Valley uses interest rate swaps as part of its interest rate risk management strategy. Interest rate swaps designated as cash flow hedges involve the payment of either fixed or variable-rate amounts in exchange for the receipt of variable or fixed-rate amounts from a counterparty.

At December 31, 2020, Valley had 10 interest rate swap agreements, with a total notional amount of $1.1 billion, to hedge the changes in cash flows associated with certain short-term FHLB advances and brokered deposits. Valley is required to pay fixed-rates of interest ranging from 0.05 percent to 0.67 percent and receives variable rates of interest that reset quarterly based on three-month LIBOR. Expiration dates for the swaps range from April 2021 to August 2022.

Fair Value Hedges of Fixed Rate Assets and Liabilities. Valley is exposed to changes in the fair value of certain of its fixed rate assets or liabilities due to changes in benchmark interest rates based on one-month LIBOR. From time to time, Valley uses interest rate swaps to manage its exposure to changes in fair value. Interest rate swaps designated as fair value hedges

involve the receipt of variable rate payments from a counterparty in exchange for Valley making fixed rate payments over the life of the agreements without the exchange of the underlying notional amount. For derivatives that are designated and qualify as fair value hedges, the gain or loss on the derivative as well as the loss or gain on the hedged item attributable to the hedged risk are recognized in earnings. Valley includes the gain or loss on the hedged items in the same income statement line item as the loss or gain on the related derivatives.

Non-designated Hedges. Derivatives not designated as hedges may be used to manage Valley’s exposure to interest rate movements or to provide service to customers but do not meet the requirements for hedge accounting under U.S. GAAP. Derivatives not designated as hedges are not entered into for speculative purposes. Valley executes interest rate swaps with commercial lending customers to facilitate their respective risk management strategies. These interest rate swaps with customers are simultaneously offset by interest rate swaps that Valley executes with a third party, such that Valley minimizes its net risk exposure resulting from such transactions. As these interest rate swaps do not meet the strict hedge accounting requirements, changes in the fair value of both the customer swaps and the offsetting swaps are recognized directly in earnings.

Valley sometimes enters into risk participation agreements with external lenders where the banks are sharing their risk of default on the interest rate swaps on participated loans. Valley either pays or receives a fee depending on the participation type. Risk participation agreements are credit derivatives not designated as hedges. Credit derivatives are not speculative and are not used to manage interest rate risk in assets or liabilities. Changes in the fair value in credit derivatives are recognized directly in earnings. At December 31, 2020, Valley had 26 credit swaps with an aggregate notional amount of $221.1 million related to risk participation agreements.

At December 31, 2020, Valley had two "steepener" swaps with a total current notional amount of $10.4 million where the receive rate on the swap mirrors the pay rate on the brokered deposits. The rates paid on these types of hybrid instruments are based on a formula derived from the spread between the long and short ends of the constant maturity swap (CMS) rate curve. Although these types of instruments do not meet the hedge accounting requirements, the change in fair value of both the bifurcated derivative and the stand-alone swap tend to move in opposite directions with changes in three-month LIBOR rate and therefore provide an effective economic hedge.

Valley regularly enters into mortgage banking derivatives which are non-designated hedges. These derivatives include interest rate lock commitments provided to customers to fund certain residential mortgage loans to be sold into the secondary market and forward commitments for the future delivery of such loans. Valley enters into forward commitments for the future delivery of residential mortgage loans when interest rate lock commitments are entered into in order to economically hedge the effect of future changes in interest rates on Valley’s commitments to fund the loans as well as on its portfolio of mortgage loans held for sale.


	December 31, 2020						December 31, 2019
	Fair Value						Fair Value
	Other Assets		Other Liabilities		Notional Amount		Other Assets		Other Liabilities		Notional Amount
	(in thousands)
Derivatives designated as hedging instruments:
Cash flow hedge interest swaps	$	—	$	179	$	1,100,000	$	—	$	1,484	$	180,000
Fair value hedge interest rate swaps	—		—		—		—		229		7,281
Total derivatives designated as hedging instruments	$	—	$	179	$	1,100,000	$	—	$	1,713	$	187,281
Derivatives not designated as hedging instruments:
Interest rate swaps and other contracts (1)	$	387,008	$	154,025	$	8,889,557	$	158,382	$	42,020	$	4,113,106
Mortgage banking derivatives	444		2,077		321,486		150		193		142,760
Total derivatives not designated as hedging instruments	$	387,452	$	156,102	$	9,211,043	$	158,532	$	42,213	$	4,255,866

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange and London Clearing House variation margins are classified as a single-unit of account with the cash flow hedges and over-the-counter (OTC) non-designated derivative instruments. As a result, the fair value of the designated cash flow interest rate swaps assets and designated and non-designated interest rate swaps liabilities were reduced by variation margin treated as settlement of the related derivatives fair values for legal and accounting purposes as required by central clearing houses and reported in the table above on a net basis at December 31, 2020 and 2019.

Gains (losses) included in the consolidated statements of income and in other comprehensive income (loss), on a pre-tax basis, related to interest rate derivatives designated as hedges of cash flows were as follows:


	2020		2019		2018
	(in thousands)
Amount of loss reclassified from accumulated other comprehensive loss to interest expense	$	(2,912)	$	(1,808)	$	(3,493)
Amount of (loss) gain recognized in other comprehensive income	(3,169)		(1,380)		2,651

The net gains or losses related to cash flow hedge ineffectiveness were immaterial during the years ended December 31, 2020, 2019 and 2018. The accumulated net after-tax losses related to effective cash flow hedges included in accumulated other comprehensive loss were $4.0 million and $3.7 million at December 31, 2020 and 2019, respectively.

Amounts reported in accumulated other comprehensive loss related to cash flow interest rate derivatives are reclassified to interest expense as interest payments are made on the hedged variable interest rate liabilities. Valley estimates that $3.4 million will be reclassified as an increase to interest expense in 2021.

The following table presents the hedged items related to interest rate derivatives designated as hedges of fair value and the cumulative basis fair value adjustment included in the net carrying amount of the hedged items at December 31, 2020 and 2019:


Line Item in the Statement of Financial Position in Which the Hedged Item is Included	Carrying Amount of the Hedged Asset				Cumulative Amount of Fair Value Hedging Adjustment Included in the Carrying Amount of the Hedged Asset
	2020		2019		2020		2019
	(in thousands)
Loans	$	—	$	7,510	$	—	$	229

Fee income related to derivative interest rate swaps executed with commercial loan customers totaled $59.0 million, $33.4 million and $16.4 million for the years ended December 31, 2020, 2019 and 2018, respectively.