How Has the Financial Crisis Affected Bank Closures?
Almost 15 times as many U.S. banks have closed since 2007 — 359 of them so far — as closed between 2000 and 2006, before the worldwide financial crisis began. A mere 24 U.S. banks failed from 2000-2006, and just three more failed in 2007. The rash of closures began in 2008, when 25 closed, followed by 140 failures in 2009 and a peak of 157 closures in 2010, which was the most in one year since the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and '90s.
More about bank closures:
The states with high numbers of bank closures include Illinois, Georgia, Florida and California.
The 297 bank failures in 2009 and 2010 cost the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) more than $50 billion US Dollars (USD), which as of the end of 2010 was actually some $7 billion USD in deficit — though the FDIC states that depositors' money is still insured.
Banks closed at a rate of about three per week in 2010. So far in 2011, that rate has dropped to slightly more than two per week.
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