Another Three Bank Failures, Year’s Total Nears Triple Digits

Three bank failures on Friday brought the total number of FDIC-insured institutions that have failed this year to 98. The estimated cost to the FDIC's insurance fund for Friday's failures was $293.3 million. (See our interactive list of failed banks.) 

On Tuesday, FDIC Chairwoman Sheila Bair acknowledged that the agency's deposit fund would likely fall into the red within the week. Bair proposed a plan to shore up the fund. Under the plan, banks would prepay their annual assessments owed to the FDIC. Payments that would normally stretch through 2012 would all be handed over this year. The plan would raise $45 billion. To avoid a hit on their earnings from the payments, banks would be allowed to record the prepayment as if they paid on the usual yearly schedule.

As of June, the FDIC had 416 banks on its problem bank list. The blog Calculated Risk has also put together a problem bank list based on enforcement orders. Most analysts expect many more bank failures to come.

The three failures on Friday seem to follow the dominant storyline that connects so many of the banks that have gone belly up. The three banks concentrated too heavily on real estate lending and were eventually dragged down by their portfolios of delinquent loans.

Warren Bank of Warren, Mich., was the largest bank by assets put into receivership by the FDIC on Friday. As of July 31, the bank had total assets of $538 million and total deposits of approximately $501 million. Huntington National Bank of Columbus, Ohio, will pay the FDIC a premium of 0.27 percent to assume all of the deposits of Warren Bank. It will also purchase approximately $83 million of the failed bank's assets.

The other two banks to fail -- Jennings State Bank of Spring Grove, Minn., and Southern Colorado National Bank of Pueblo -- were significantly smaller with assets of $56.3 million and $39.5 million, respectively. Central Bank of Stillwater, Minn., took Jennings' deposits. Legacy Bank of Wiley, Colo., assumed Southern's deposits.

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