19. Off Balance Sheet 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. 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 amount of financial instruments with off balance sheet risk was as follows at December 31, 2015 and 2014:


	2015				2014
	Fixed Rate		Variable Rate		Fixed Rate		Variable Rate

Commitments to make loans		$42,803		$259,032		$28,831		$254,269
Unused lines of credit		0		87,493		0		80,428
Standby letters of credit		0		15,704		0		15,132

Commitments to make loans are generally made for periods of 60 days or less. The fixed rate loan commitments at December 31, 2015 have interest rates ranging from 1.19% to 18.00% and maturities ranging from 3 months to 20 years. The fixed rate loan commitments at December 31, 2014 have interest rates ranging from 1.69% to 18.00% and maturities ranging from 3 months to 20 years.

In October 2015, the Corporation entered into a subscription agreement with Oxer BCP Mezzanine Fund, LP (“Oxer”) and committed to invest $5,000 as a limited partner in the fund. Oxer is a Small Business Investment Company (SBIC) that is licensed and regulated by the Office of Investment at the Small Business Administration (SBA). The SBIC license allows SBICs to employ private capital and funds borrowed at a low cost using SBA-guaranteed securities to make investments in qualifying small businesses and similar enterprises as defined by SBA regulations. As of December 31, 2015, Oxer’s general partner had not requested any of the capital committed by its limited partner investors.