Feds Close Arkansas National Bank For "Unsafe And Unsound" Practices

BENTONVILLE, Ark. — Federal regulators says they've closed ANB Financial National Association banks after discovering "unsafe and unsound" business practices there.

David Barr, a spokesman for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. says many customers served by the bank's nine locations had accounts under $100,000, which will be fully insured by the government. Barr says customers can continue to write checks and draw money from ATMs through the weekend.

Barr says Pulaski Bank and Trust Co. agreed to assume control over ANB Financial's bank locations, which will be open Monday.

As of Jan. 31, federal regulators say ANB Financial had about $2.1 billion in assets and $1.8 billion in total deposits.

It was the third closure this year of an FDIC-insured bank. Douglass National Bank, a Missouri bank with $58.5 million in assets, was shut in January; another Missouri institution with assets of $18.7 million, Hume Bank, was shut down in March.

Both were dwarfed in size of ANB Financial, where regulators found lax lending standards, mostly for construction and development loans for projects in Utah, Idaho and Wyoming, as well as Arkansas.

Observers have been watching for signs of bank distress resulting from the mortgage crisis. Profits at federally insured U.S. banks and thrifts plunged to a 16-year low in the fourth quarter as institutions set aside a record-high amount to cover losses from sour mortgages.

The FDIC is planning to beef up its staff, including temporarily hiring up to 25 retired FDIC employees who worked in the agency's more than 200-person division that handles failed banks. They will handle an anticipated increase in bank failures.

Comments

[marinemomof3]

This is ONLY the beginning.

[FreedomCorpse]

indeed..marine mom....Wall street and warren buffet have started lying diligently in order to soothe say the whole economic disaster.

[Veri]

Financial dictatorship. Done so slowly, most Americans don't even realize it. Conquered America.

[dadw5boys]

IT IS CALLED ECONOMIC SLAVERY!

ENDENTURED SERVANTS!

[longnow]

Wow, things are starting to pick up steam on the downside and I hope to hell
it stops. I've been reading Jubek and others and if you read between the
lines IT DON"T LOOK GOOD. Silver cannot be purchased. Kudlow is
unwatchable and he should get on over to fox news and get it over with.
The man is unhinged and has been doing HGH and too much botox.
It's Fast Money and Cramer and Jubek not in that order.

[KYJurisDocto]

Somewhere, somehow, the Clintons MUST be involved!

[radiojunkie]

yes, you're correct. bill clinton deregulated the financial industry under pressure from then senator phil graham (r) texas. you see, senator graham insisted that the easiest way for folks to accumulate wealth was to buy a house instead of being forced to rent due to imperfect credit. bill clinton agreed to loosening the regulations toward loans for folks with less than perfect credit.

what phil graham really wanted was for lenders to get rich with all the new loans that would result from relaxed regulation. as the bill passed both houses of congress, regulations for lenders were eased. here's where the bad part comes in. lenders are now free of the ties that bound them in the past. predatory lending is no longer policed. now we have the housing crisis.

phil graham is currently john mccain's senior economic adviser for the presidential campaign. graham will probably have an influence in economic affairs for a mccain administration, if not a cabinet level post. if you're better off now than you were eight years ago, go ahead and vote republican. don't say I didn't warn you.

[Hallucinocynic]

Gramm, not Graham.

[bikerdude]

Glad you brought that out...and the spelling is Gramm...
Tie that sleazy cretin to McCain and the savings and loan scandal and you can see how they think and what they think about. I am surprised that both Gramm and McCain aren't in jail for their shennagins

[TXfemmom]

Clinton was not the driving force behind it. Phil Gramm and the Republican-controlled Congress did the deregulation part.

Phil Gramm told regulators that he would completely defund their agencies if they didn't back off on enforcing rules which had the bearing of laws, and when they protested, Gramm retorted, "I don't care if the streets run red with the blood of investors" and that is just what happened with Enron and the subprime mess. He and his wife Wendy, who was on the Board of Enron, kissed the butts of Enron and the banks and investment houses, and it was the REPUBLICAN CONGRESS WHICH FORCED THOSE CHANGES THROUGH.

As mentioned by raidiojunkie, McCain now has the said PHIL GRAMM as his CHIEF economic advisor, and in the interum GRAMM HAS BEEN WITH UBS, one of the largest banks involved in the subprime meltdown.

GRAMM AND HIS WIFE AND A BUNCH OF REPUBLICANS SHOULD BE IN JAIL, INSTEAD OF OUT THERE ADVISING ANYONW.

[drkazmd65]

Unfortunately,... I suspect that this is a sign of things to come with the US banking 'industry'.

Much like everything else - deregulation has made many individuals (unscrupulous ones) very rich, and socialized the costs of losses onto the taxpayer base.

One of the things that the new President is going to have to do, and a thing that will make him very unpopular in the short run, is help push through re-regulation of financial institutions, telecomunications, energy, chemical, and mining industries, and the airlines.

Long run - reregulation will do us all a lot of good, but short-term it is going to hurt a lot.

[radiojunkie]

100% true......I'd also like to see key industries like big oil, health care, Rx, and higher education receive perpetual oversight and taxes/re-regulation assessed whenever windfall profits accumulate or when executives get rich at the expense of the taxpayer.

[Veri]

Not going to happen. Anytime soon. Most Americans are too weak to do anything meaningful about it. You already have canned politicians. Prepaid and prebought. All on credit provided by Wall Street, bankers, and The Fed.

[bikerdude]

Every time we deregulate, we see high handed profiteering and abuse of the system. We are looking for the welfare of the citizens/customers and they are looking how to cut costs and increase profits. Usually when deregulation occurs we see the beancounters managing operations.