I find myself in the fascinating position of having my ability to read a balance sheet correctly defended by Communists and Republicans
Let us, together, explore the meaning of The Balance Sheet.
Currency and near-currency assetsThe first four items are "near-currency assets", like
U.S. official reserve assets (this includes some things like gold),
SDR certificates (Special Drawing Rights, which are liabilities of the International Monetary Fund),
treasury currency (liabilities of the United States Treasury),
foreign deposits (liabilities of foreign central banks). Many of these do actually accrue interest although, like any deposit, they constitute a
zero-day loan: I can put it in the bank and withdraw it the same day.
Net interbank assets refers to, well, assets held between banks. If you go to page 109 in the document you can see this broken down: the vast majority is with the Federal Reserve (interest earning deposits, zero-day loans again), and smaller amounts in other institutions. Checkable deposits and currency should be self-explanatory. These too are economically zero-day loans.
Short-term deposits and fundsTime and savings deposits are again deposits, but unlike zero-day checking deposits they either have a penalty or a required period to hold them. But they earn interest and constitute lending.
Money market funds shares are generally securitized forms of commercial paper (we'll get to commercial paper) and are interest earning. Functionally institutions and individuals use them as a way of earning a small amount of interest on money that could otherwise be held on deposit and still have liquidity.
Federal funds are funds required by the Fed to be held in reserve at banks (interest earning);
security repos are similarly a near-cash form of funding: repo is short for
repurchase agreement and constitute very short-term loans (often overnight). These earn interest.
Debt securitiesI can understand how someone might confuse zero-day loans as not constituting lending, and I think you got your 2/3rds figure by looking just under the mortgages/loans ratio. The thing is debt securities (look! it has debt in the name!) are
clearly lending. The only difference between a debt security and a loan is an accounting and trading definition: a loan doesn't usually trade actively by itself while debt securities are actively traded.
Anyway,
open market paper refers to short term debt (such as commercial paper) with a term of like three months or so.
Treasury securities refers to all tradeable United States government debt - it's amusing that you would exclude this, I guess no one lends to the US government?
Agency securities refers to securitized loans from Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Sallie Mae - these are basically bundles of existing loans put together in a gigantic blender and sold off. As I said before, while most of these are repackaged mortgages, some (like student loan securities) are not.
Municipal securities is state and local borrowing;
Corporate and foreign bonds are corporate and foreign debts.
Debt securities plainly constitute lending and indeed the largest single part of the US banking system's assets. Even if we ignore zero-day loans, deposits, and short-term lending debt securities are plainly lending - the mechanism just involves openly traded debt.
LoansObviously lending.
Corporate equities and mutual fundsThis refers mostly to ownership in corporations, either tradeable stock or private equity and ownership. (Some mutual funds will own non-equity stuff like bonds and commodities and derivatives). I suppose you
could single this out as not lending, but economically it's similar: you can finance a business either by selling a piece of its ownership off in the form of stock, or you can finance it with debt. There are also hybrid forms of financing (preferred stock, perpetual debt, and various forms of convertible debt that turn into stock in certain conditions. Either way, if you divide this out from the rest of this, your original contention is meaningless: a bank's operations include both equity and debt operations and financing an operation through stock is
at an economic level not meaningfully different from financing it through debt.
MiscellaneousTrade receivables, life insurance reserves, US FDI, and most of the miscellaneous assets are interest or dividend earning. Some of the miscellaneous assets are actually real estate since banks own branches and stuff, admittedly.