September 17, 2010 – After closing only one bank since August 20th, regulators picked up the pace and closed six banking institutions.  With the recent increase in the number of banks on the FDIC’s “Problem Bank List“, regulators should be busy well into 2011 closing institutions that are considered  “unsafe and unsound”. As of the latest report [...]

August 31, 2010 – The latest FDIC Quarterly Banking Profile shows a 7% increase in the number of Problem Banks to 829 at June 30, 2010, up from 775 at March 31, 2010.   The number of problem banks is now at its highest level since March 1993 when there were 928.  More than 10% of all US banks are now classified as problem banks at risk of failure.  The FDIC insures deposits [...]

When a banking failure occurs, the FDIC’s goal is to protect depositors and seamlessly arrange a transfer of deposits and a sale of assets to a healthy institution.  To enhance the attractiveness of a closed bank to a potential buyer and to reduce the FDIC’s immediate cash needs,  the FDIC has made extensive use of loss-share agreements (LSA) when a failed bank’s [...]

The Office of Thrift Supervision shut down Turnberry Bank of Aventura, Florida, yesterday on July 16, 2010. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) was appointed as receiver. Turnberry Bank was a full service community bank which had served South Florida since 1985. Branches were located in Aventura, Coral Gables, Pinecrest, and South Miami, Florida. The bank had total [...]

MetroBank of Dade County, Miami, Florida was closed by regulators on July 16, 2010. Together with Olde Cypress Community Bank and Turnberry Bank, this was one of three Florida banks that were shut down on Friday. Florida has a total of sixteen failed banks for the year. Metro Bank had a total of six branches located in Miami, Coral Gables, Lighthouse Point, and Sunrise, Florida. [...]

Woodlands Bank, headquartered in Bluffton, South Carolina was closed on July 16, 2010 by the Office of Thrift Supervision. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) was appointed as receiver. Woodlands Bank had branches in Mobile, Alabama; Savannah, Georgia; Bluffton, South Carolina; Beaufort, South Carolina; Wilmington, North Carolina; and Southport, North Carlina with a [...]

The FDIC estimated today that the FDIC Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF), which protects depositors in the case of banking failures, will not return to the statutory minimum level required until the first quarter of 2017.   The largest number of banking failures in twenty years has depleted the DIF, even after the FDIC collected $46 billion in prepaid DIF assessments at the end of [...]

Housing Bubble and Crash Explained – The Common Sense Explanation Thousands of articles have been written explaining how the bubble in housing developed and why it subsequently came crashing down, causing the collapse of some of the biggest financial institutions in the United States.  Perhaps most of us are simply worn down or confused by the plethora of articles and resigned [...]

Problem Banks Increase Again The latest FDIC Quarterly Banking Profile shows a 10% increase in the number of Problem Banks to 775 at March 31, 2010, up from 702 at December 31, 2009.    Although industry trends show improvement over previous quarters, almost 19% of all banking institutions reported net losses for the quarter, down from 22% a year earlier.   According to FDIC [...]

Four Banks Fail In Four States May 7, 2010 – The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) closed four more banks in Florida, Arizona, Minnesota and California.  The total number of failed banks for the year is now 68, double the number of failures at this point during 2009.  During 2009, 140 banks failed in the United States, the most since 1992. The latest banking [...]