Saturday, October 24, 2009

Bank in Florida is 100th to close this year

WASHINGTON — Bank closings for the year hit 100 on Friday when regulators shut down Partners Bank in Florida. Financial institutions nationwide have collapsed under the weight of soured real estate loans and the recession.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over Partners Bank, a small bank in Naples, with $68.7 million in assets and $63.4 million in deposits. Stonegate Bank, based in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., agreed to buy the deposits and assets of Partners Bank.

The 100 failures are the most in a year since 1992 at the height of the savings-and-loan crisis.

They have cost the federal deposit insurance fund about $25 billion so far this year, and hundreds more bank failures are expected to raise the cost to about $100 billion through 2013.

Depositors' money is not in danger.

The FDIC is backed by the government, and deposits are guaranteed up to $250,000 per account.

The 100 bank failures this year compare with 25 last year and three in 2007.




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