Life and annuities insurer Athene borrowed nearly $23.3 billion from the Federal Home Loan Bank system in the US last year.

The FHLB’s financial report for 2025 shows that Athene, which is owned by private-equity firm Apollo and was founded in Bermuda in 2009, was the second largest borrower in the system, behind only Truist Financial Corp.

Since it merged with Apollo, Athene moved its corporate domicile to Delaware, but it maintains significant annuity reinsurance operations on the island, in the form of Athene Life Re.

Created by the US Congress in 1932, the FHLB’s mission is “to provide reliable liquidity to member institutions to support housing finance and community investment”, according to its website. Participating institutions invest in mortgage-backed assets, promoting the affordability and stability of the US residential mortgage market.

The Virginia-based Office of Finance, which issues and services debt securities for the FHLB, states on its website: “No matter what size local lending institution you see doing business, it's likely they're financing much of their community lending through low-cost funds provided by their regional Federal Home Loan Bank.”

According to Bloomberg News, borrowers are not obliged to use funds for housing purposes.

Athene is one of 6,486 FHLB system members, who consist of financial institutions including banks, credit unions, savings institutions and insurers. Each member is a shareholder in one of the 11 regional FHLB banks.

Bloomberg reported that over time, the system has grown into a liquidity backstop for large institutions, with loan balances totalling $677 billion as of the end of 2025. The top ten borrowers accounted for 25 per cent of that amount.

Athene has participated in the FHLB programme since 2013. In 2025, its FHLB borrowings were up 49 per cent from a year earlier, when the insurer was the seventh-biggest borrower in the system with a balance of $15.6 billion.

In response to questions from The Royal Gazette yesterday, Athene declined to comment.

Insurance companies have been expanding their use of the system, Bloomberg reported. Insurers' FHLB borrowing has grown about 25 per cent over the past two years and has tripled since 2013, data shows.

Advances — as the FHLB loans are described — are “a standard liquidity tool” for banks and insurers, Bloomberg stated. It added that the increase in borrowings by institutions including Athene does not signal financial strain, “but it highlights how insurers are positioning themselves amid shifting credit conditions”.

Criticism of the FHLB’s expanding role in the financial system surfaced after it was revealed that Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank received billions of dollars in emergency liquidity from the FHLB of San Francisco before their collapse in 2023.

While the FHLB is a US government-sponsored enterprise, it is privately capitalised and receives no taxpayer assistance.