LOAN COMMITMENTS AND OTHER RELATED ACTIVITIES

Some financial instruments such as loan commitments, credit lines, letters of credit, and overdraft protection are issued to meet customer financing needs. These are agreements to provide credit or to support the credit of others, as long as conditions established in the contract are met, and usually have expiration dates. Commitments may expire without being used. Risk of credit loss exists up to the face amount of these instruments. The same credit policies are used to make such commitments as are used for loans, including obtaining collateral at exercise of the commitment.

The contractual amount of financial instruments with off-balance-sheet risk was as follows for the dates indicated:



	December 31,
	2015				2014
	Fixed Rate		Variable Rate		Fixed Rate		Variable Rate
	(In thousands)
Commitments to extend credit	$	40,312	$	99,026	$	87,517	$	82,818
Unused lines of credit	6,044		508,295		20,631		295,626
Letters of credit	2,611		11,278		825		10,411

Commitments to make loans are generally made for periods of 30 days or less.

As of December 31, 2015, total forward commitments were $684.0 million. These commitments consisted of TBAs of $632.0 million and best efforts of $52.0 million. Additionally, the Company had IRLCs of $278.9 million at December 31, 2015.

Litigation

In the normal course of business, we are involved in various legal claims. Management has reviewed all pending legal claims against us with in-house or outside legal counsel and has taken into consideration the views of such counsel as to the outcome of the claims. In management’s opinion, the final disposition of all such claims will not have a material adverse effect on our financial position or results of operations.