The Federal Home Loan Bank System witnessed an increase in earnings for the third quarter, which rose to $861 million, and a year-to-date total of $2,478 million. The FHLBank Office of Finance noted that the quarterly net income increase was due to higher gains on litigation settlements, derivatives, hedging activities and higher net interest income. Additionally, the increase on year-to-date earnings was due to gains on trading securities, partially offset by losses on derivatives and hedging activities. Total assets for the FHLBanks grew to $1.036 trillion, an 8.7 percent increase from the second quarter. Advances represented $688.6 billion, which was driven mainly by higher member demand by larger members. That number is down slightly from the...