Wyoming Bank Fails on Friday

Thermopolis, Wyoming advertises itself as the "home of the World's Largest Mineral Hot Spring." It is also now home of the first bank failure in the state since 1991. On Friday, the FIDC and state regulators shut down the Bank of Wyoming, located in Thermopolis. The failure is the 53rd of the year in the U.S. and will cost the FDIC's insurance fund about $27 million.

Central Bank & Trust of Lander, Wyoming agreed to take on the deposits of the bank and approximately $55 million of its loans portfolio. The FDIC will try to sell the rest.

In October 2008, the FIDC issued a Cease and Desist Order against the Bank of Wyoming. It's the strongest public enforcement action short of closing a bank in the agency's arsenal. Here are some of the "unsafe and unsound" banking activities the regulators found and wanted stopped:

    (a) operating with management whose policies and practices are detrimental to the Bank and jeopardize the safety of its deposits;

    (b) operating with a board of directors which has failed to provide adequate supervision over and direction to the active management of the Bank;

    (c) operating with inadequate capital in relation to the kind and quality of assets held
    the Bank;

    (d) operating with an inadequate loan valuation reserve;

    (e) operating with a large volume of poor quality loans;

    (f) engaging in unsatisfactory lending and collection practices;

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