December 05, 2009

While the planet appears to be showing signs of emerging from the worst global financial crisis in decades U.S. small banks continue to fail at an alarming rate.American regulators on Friday seized another 6 bringing the total number of bank failures in the United States to 130 during 2009 with analysts expecting this to continue apace during 2010.The banks were split between Georgia(3), New York, Chicago and Ohio with the largest being AmTrust Bank in Cleveland.

In 2007 a mere 3 banks folded while in 2008 the number rose to 25. Of concern is the fact that AmTrust is the 7th largest failure of the current banking crisis.The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp(FDIC), which is required to safeguard bank accounts believe that the banking industry's recovery will lag behind that of the general economy. They were tasked with placing assets in excess of $1.4 billion and deposits of over $9.3 billion from the six banks with new lenders which cost the FDIC $2.384 billion.