Lending was mostly stagnant at Massachusetts’ banks in the first quarter, dipping to $65 billion in the first quarter from $65.1 billion in the same period in 2009, according to the latest quarterly data released by the FDIC.

Business loans are treading water and residential lending is in a slump, but, surprisingly, commercial real estate loans stand out as an area of improvement.

Commercial real estate lending, perhaps against expectations, rose to $16.6 billion in the first quarter from $15.2 billion in the first quarter of 2009.

But overall business lending stayed at about $6 billion year-over-year, and residential loan portfolios dropped to $33.7 billion from $34.6 billion.

Meanwhile, banks saw a continued upward creep in soured loans. Assets in non-accural status – loans which are more than 90 days overdue and unlikely to be recovered – rose to slightly more than $1 billion, up from $793 million in the first quarter of 2009. Still, that accounts for only about 2.3 percent of total loans statewide.

Across the state, total assets rose to $99.7 billion from $97.2 billion, with equity capital also rising – to $10.4 billion compared to $9.1 billion last year.

Massachusetts banks have also lost ground on their capital ratios, albeit slowly: Tier 1 Leverage stood at 9.27 percent in the first quarter, compared to 9.3 percent last year.