WASHINGTON (CBS4) – New numbers from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation showed 2010 was the worst year for bank failures in the United States since 1992 during the height of the savings-and-loan crisis, according to the Washington Post.
Nearly half of those failures in 2010 took place in banks headquartered in four of the worst hit states during the Great Recession and the housing collapse: Florida, California, Georgia, and Illinois.
As 2010 ends, a total of 157 banks in the United States had failed. Since January 2009, a total of 297 banks in the country have failed. The Post reported that just a few years ago, before the Great Recession hit, there were zero bank failures
But, just because some economists have said the Great Recession is technically over; it doesn’t mean that the banking system is in the clear just yet.
The Post reported the FDIC’s list of banks that could end up failing in 2011 jumped to 860 at the beginning of October. That marked the highest number of “problem” banks on the list since 1993. Typically, 20 percent of the banks on the list end up failing, according to the Post.
The banks that failed in 2010 were typically smaller than those that collapsed in 2009 and despite being in the red at the end of 2010, the FDIC said it’s insurance fund will have more than enough money to pay for bank failures through 2014.
