Earlier this week my company reported on our findings about the first quarter number of the banking industry. Our industry fact sheet indicates that banking is getting healthier. The number of F rated banks is at the lowest point since the start of the 2008 crisis. The FDIC's long-term campaign to push banks towards greater safety and soundness or perish seems to be bearing fruit.
This week, bank regulators continued this process taking down four under capitalized banks. Largest of the closures was $533M asset Waccamaw Bank in Whiteville, North Carolina. It had been under capitalized since June of 2011. Two smaller banks, $46M asset First Capital Bank of Kingfisher, Oklahoma and $34M asset Farmers' and Traders' State Bank of Shabbona, Illinois also succumbed to a lack of capital. A fourth under-capitalized small bank, $47M asset Carolina Federal Savings Bank of Charleston, South Carolina managed to improve its period operating numbers in the recently ended March 2012 reporting period but this was not enough to stave off the regulator's axe. All banks found buyers and will reopen as part of their acquiring institutions on Monday.
The IRA forensic reports on these four banks are locate at these links,
Farmers' and Traders' State Bank - Shabbona, IL 6/8/2012
Waccamaw Bank - Whiteville, NC 6/8/2012
First Capital Bank - Kingfisher, OK 6/8/2012
Carolina Federal Savings Bank - Charleston, SC 6/8/2012
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August 8, 2011While Washington grapples with a credit downgrade and market turmoil, the Euro crisis has returned with a fury. Just weeks after Europe fashioned yet another plan to avoid a Greek default on its sovereign debt, global financial markets are now demanding that Italy and Spain pay more to borrow money -- and they may soon need their own bailouts.
The European Central Bank signaled on Sunday that it will invest in European bond markets in an attempt to prop up hard-hit Italy and Spain, Europe’s fourth and fifth largest economies. ECB’s intervention, along with a vow by the G-7 nations to take “all necessary measures to support financial stability and growth appeared to buoy the bonds of both nations, or at least temporarily.
...if the Euro crisis brings down European banks, the backwash will be a body blow to the American financial system.
By ZACHARY A. GOLDFARB The Washington Post
Bailouts, guarantees, accounting rule changes, negligible-cost loans from the Fed, negligible interest paid to depositors, immunity from prosecution for ongoing malfeasance.
It outta be.