Commitments, Contingencies and Guarantees

The following table summarizes the Company's commitments:



(Dollars in millions)	December 31, 2019
Commitments to extend credit	$	38,442
Issued standby and commercial letters of credit	4,191
Commitments to enter into forward-starting resale agreements	1,150
Other commitments	556

Commitments to extend credit are legally binding agreements to lend to a customer provided there are no violations of any condition established in the contract. Commitments have fixed expiration dates or other termination clauses and may require maintenance of compensatory balances. Since many of the commitments to extend credit may expire without being drawn upon, the total commitment amounts do not necessarily represent future cash flow requirements.

Standby and commercial letters of credit are conditional commitments issued to guarantee the performance of a customer to a third party. Standby letters of credit are generally contingent upon the failure of the customer to perform according to the terms of the underlying contract with the third party, while commercial letters of credit are issued specifically to facilitate foreign or domestic trade transactions. The majority of these types of commitments have remaining terms of 1 year or less. At December 31, 2019, the carrying amount of the Company's standby and commercial letters of credit totaled $4 million. Estimated exposure to loss related to these commitments is covered by the allowance for losses on unfunded commitments. The carrying amounts of the standby and commercial letters of credit and the allowance for losses on unfunded credit commitments are included in other liabilities on the consolidated balance sheet.

The credit risk involved in issuing loan commitments and standby and commercial letters of credit is essentially the same as that involved in extending loans to customers and is represented by the contractual amount of these instruments. Collateral may be obtained based on management's credit assessment of the customer.

Other commitments include collateralized financing activities, commitments to fund principal investments, other securities, and residual value guarantees.

Principal investments include direct investments in private and public companies. The Company issues commitments to provide equity and mezzanine capital financing to private and public companies through direct investments. The timing of future cash requirements to fund such commitments is generally dependent on the investment cycle. This cycle, the period over which privately held companies are funded by private equity investors and ultimately sold, merged, or taken public through an initial offering, can vary based on overall market conditions as well as the nature and type of industry in which the companies operate.

The Company occasionally enters into financial guarantee contracts where a premium is received from another financial institution counterparty to guarantee a portion of the credit risk on interest rate swap contracts entered into between the financial institution and its customer. The Company becomes liable to pay the financial institution only if the financial institution is unable to collect amounts owed to them by their customer. As of December 31, 2019, the current exposure to loss under these contracts totaled $26 million, and the maximum potential exposure to loss in the future was estimated at $43 million.

The Company is subject to various pending and threatened legal actions that arise in the normal course of business. The Company maintains liabilities for losses from legal actions that are recorded when they are determined to be both probable in their occurrence and can be reasonably estimated. Management believes the disposition of all claims currently pending, including potential losses from claims that may exceed the liabilities recorded, and claims for loss contingencies that are considered reasonably possible to occur, will not have a material effect, either individually or in the aggregate, on the Company's consolidated financial condition, results of operations or liquidity.