Bank failures in Fla., Ill. bring 2012 total to 49

[November 03, 2012]  WASHINGTON (AP) -- Regulators on Friday closed a bank in Florida and one in Illinois, bringing to 49 the number of U.S. bank failures this year.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. seized Heritage Bank of Florida, based in Lutz, Fla., and Citizens First National Bank, based in Princeton, Ill.

The two bank failures are expected to cost the deposit insurance fund $110.7 million.

Heritage Bank had about $225.5 million in assets and $223.3 million in deposits as of Sept. 30. Centennial Bank, based in Conway, Ark., agreed to assume Heritage's deposits and purchase about $193.7 million of its assets.

Heritage Bank, which had three branches, is the eighth FDIC-insured institution to fail in Florida this year.

Citizens First had $924 million in assets and $869.4 million in deposits as of Sept. 30.

Heartland Bank and Trust Co., based in Bloomington, Ill., will assume Citizens First's assets and essentially all of its deposits.

Citizens First had 21 branches. It is the eighth FDIC-insured institution to be seized by regulators in Illinois this year.

U.S. bank closures are running at a much slower pace than in 2011. By this time last year, 85 banks had failed.

Bank closures peaked in 2010 in the wake of the financial crisis. In 2007, just three banks went under. That number jumped to 25 in 2008, after the meltdown, and ballooned to 140 in 2009.

In 2010, regulators seized 157 banks, the most in any year since the savings and loan crisis two decades ago. The FDIC has said 2010 likely was the high-water mark for bank failures from the Great Recession. They declined to a total of 92 in 2011.

From 2008 through 2011, bank failures cost the deposit insurance fund an estimated $88 billion. The fund fell into the red in 2009. But with failures slowing, the fund's balance turned positive in the second quarter of last year. By June 30, it stood at $22.7 billion, up from $15.3 billion at the end of March.

The FDIC expects bank failures from 2012 through 2016 to cost $10 billion.

[Associated Press]

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