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, 2017 and 2016:


	2017				2016
	Fixed Rate		Variable Rate		Fixed Rate		Variable Rate

Commitments to make loans		$64,799		$210,987		$57,283		$202,883
Unused lines of credit		0		118,348		0		105,779
Standby letters of credit		0		14,985		0		4,618

Commitments to make loans are generally made for periods of 60 days or less. The fixed rate loan commitments at December 31, 2017 have interest rates ranging from 1.00% to 18.00% and maturities ranging from 8 months to 30 years. The fixed rate loan commitments at December 31, 2016 have interest rates ranging from 1.19% to 18.00% and maturities ranging from 6 months to 30 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. In February 2017, the Corporation entered into a subscription agreement with Tecum Capital Partners II, LP (“Tecum”) and committed to invest $3,000 as a limited partner in the fund. Oxer and Tecum are both Small Business Investment Company (SBIC) that are 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, 2017, the Bank has made $3,290 of capital contributions to Oxer and $1,167 of capital contributions to Tecum.