The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System conducts the Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices on a quarterly basis to ensure the availability of results for the January, May, August, and November meetings of the Federal Open Market Committee. The August 1998 survey includes questions of changes in standards on home equity, consumer, and commercial real estate loans, and the causes and effects of reduced participation of US branches and agencies of foreign banks in the US loan market.