FDIC Friday ~ May 31, 2013 ~ Another failed bank!

[Copper Catcher]

North Shore Bank, FSB, Brookfield, Wisconsin, Assumes All of the Deposits of Banks of Wisconsin, Kenosha, Wisconsin

As of March 31, 2012, Banks of Wisconsin had approximately $134.0 million in total assets and $127.6 million in total deposits. In addition to assuming all of the deposits of the failed bank, North Shore Bank, FSB agreed to purchase approximately $97.4 million of the failed bank's assets. The FDIC will retain the remaining assets for later disposition.

The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) will be $26.3 million. Compared to other alternatives, North Shore Bank, FSB's acquisition was the least costly resolution for the FDIC's DIF. Banks of Wisconsin is the 14th FDIC-insured institution to fail in the nation this year, and the first in Wisconsin. The last FDIC-insured institution closed in the state was Legacy Bank, Milwaukee, on March 11, 2011.

[Fusion]

During the first quarter of 2013, 4 insured institutions failed, marking the smallest number of failures in a quarter since the second quarter of 2008, when it had recorded 2 failures. Moreover, as of Mar 2013, 13 failures were recorded, as compared with 24 failures in the comparable prior-year period.

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)-insured commercial banks and savings institutions reported first-quarter 2013 earnings of $40.3 billion, outpacing the year-ago earnings of $34.8 billion by 15.8%. This marks the 15th consecutive quarter in which earnings soared on a year-over-year basis.

ROA surged to 1.12% from 1.00% in the prior-year quarter. Notably, the current quarterly ROA for the industry is the highest since 1.22% recorded in the second quarter of 2007.

[68Camaro]

Once most of the small banks fail there aren't many others left to fail... The big bankers have done their job, they themselves bailed out, while the small banks forced out of business and into consolidation, leaving the bigger banks to divvy up the rest of the industry. There is more consolidation to come, if it is allowed to happen - the big sharks are already eating the smaller sharks.

[Fusion]

There are 7,000 banks. Yes, consolidation will happen as it always does in these cycles. Then there will be DeNovo's to fill the gaps and the cycle of banking life will continue. TBTF is hot topic on the hill and its likely the largest of financial institutions will be broken up...at least that's the way the wind is blowing today.

[Copper Catcher]

Two interesting articles ~ Truth or Fiction? I'll let you decide...

No Bank Deposits Will Be Spared from Confiscation
http://www.infowars.com/no-bank-deposit ... fiscation/

Think your bank deposits will always be 100% guaranteed by the FDIC? Think again.
http://americablog.com/2013/04/fdic-uk- ... ation.html

[68Camaro]

There are 7,000 banks. Yes, consolidation will happen as it always does in these cycles. Then there will be DeNovo's to fill the gaps and the cycle of banking life will continue. TBTF is hot topic on the hill and its likely the largest of financial institutions will be broken up...at least that's the way the wind is blowing today.

I didn't have time earlier to dig into your claim (and often don't when people post these things), but if one can believe wiki without checking further it seems that:

In 1988, there were about 12,500 U.S. banks with less than $300 million in deposits, and about 900 with more deposits, but by 2012, there were only 4,200 banks with less than $300 million in deposits in the U.S., and over 1,800 with more.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banking_in ... ted_States

From the same article, of those ~6000 banks,

the five largest banks in the United States at December 31, 2011 were JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, and Goldman Sachs. In December 2011, the five largest banks' assets were equal to 56 percent of the U.S. economy, compared with 43 percent five years earlier.

So in round numbers there are less than half the number of banks in the US than there were 25 years ago, and of those remaining, the assets have shifted dramatically from the small to the large. This is not a cyclical decline as you claim, but rather a major shift in power. (Though not unlike similiar changes in many other maturing industries.)

It remains to be seen whether they will break any of the large ones up; I'm skeptical that will happen - everything DC has been doing has been the path of catering to them and encouraging them rather than the opposite.