NOTE 12 - COMMITMENTS AND CONTINGENT LIABILITIES

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. Off-balance-sheet risk to credit loss exists up to the face amount of these instruments, although material losses are not anticipated. 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 amounts of financial instruments with off-balance-sheet risk at year end were as follows:

	2017				2016
	Fixed Rate		Variable Rate		Fixed Rate		Variable Rate
Commitments and unused lines of credit	$	74,119	$	265,260	$	74,798	$	247,080

Commitments to make loans are generally made for periods of 30 days or less. Commitments and fixed rate unused lines of credit have interest rates ranging from 2.99% to 16.00% at December 31, 2017 and 0.10% to 18.00% at December 31, 2016. There were six fixed rate loan commitments for 2016 that has an interest rate of 4.25% to 5.25% and matures within fifteen years. Variable rate loan commitments had interest rates at December 31, 2016 that ranged from 4.69% to 5.75%.

Standby letters of credit are considered financial guarantees. The standby letters of credit have a contractual value of $4.9 million at December 31, 2017 and $4.3 million at December 31, 2016. The carrying amount of these items on the balance sheet is not material.

Additionally, the Company has committed up to a $8 million subscription in SBIC investment funds. At December 31, 2017 the Company had invested $5.0 million in these funds.