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Bank failure costs hit $20 billion
Posted: Oct. 5, 2010 | Tags: banks, BankTracker, failed banks, FDIC, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over two more failed banks last Friday, pushing the number for the year to 129 and the estimated cost to more than $20 billion, with three months left in the year.
Last year the FDIC had closed 97 banks through Oct. 2, but because the failed banks were larger, the total estimated cost to the government was more than $27.3 billion.
By the end of 2009, 140 banks had failed at a total estimated cost to the federal insurance fund of more than $37.2 billion. Last year there were eight bank failures that cost the FDIC more than $1 billion each, including the $4.9 billion failure of BankUnited, FSB of Coral Gables, Fla.
Three failures this year have cost the fund more than $1 billion, and they all three occurred on April 30. Altogether, seven banks failed that day, with an estimated price tag of $7.35 billion. The most expensive was the $3.3 billion failure of Westernbank of Puerto Rico.
Florida has seen the most failures so far, with 25. Georgia and Illinois both have had 15 banks closed.
You can see a list of all bank failures this year as part of our BankTracker project.
