WASHINGTON–The FDIC reported that during 2020 the nation’s insured banks saw just four failures at a cost to the insurance fund of $99.5 million.
According to the agency’s annual report, all four failures were resolved through purchase-and-assumption agreements with other banks, similar to the process used by NCUA.
The four banks that failed were Ericson State Bank in Ericson, Neb.; The First State Bank in Barboursville, W.V.; First City Bank of Florida in Fort Walton Beach and Almena State Bank in Almena, Kan.
In addition, the report shows that the FDIC Bank Insurance Fund insured $8.9 trillion in customer deposits as of year-end 2020, or 56.8% of insured banks’ total domestic deposits. The fund itself totaled some $116.4 billion.
Similar to the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund, an influx of deposits into banks as a result of the coronavirus pandemic helped push down the DIF’s equity ratio to 1.3% from 1.41% of insured deposits as of Sept. 30, 2020. The NCUSIF stood at 1.26% as of year-end, but the ratio is expected to increase by midyear unless another round of federal stimulus leads to a new deposit surge.
The FDIC also reported it approved 18 applications for deposit insurance in 2020, as well as 430 applications for new branches and 159 mergers.