The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is a United States government corporation supplying deposit insurance to depositors in American commercial banks and savings banks. The FDIC was created by the Banking Act of 1933, enacted during the Great Depression to restore trust in the American banking system. More than one-third of banks failed in the years before the FDIC's creation, and bank runs were common. The insurance limit was initially US$2,500 per ownership category, and this has been increased several times over the years. Since the enactment of the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in 2010, the FDIC insures deposits in member banks up to $250,000 per ownership category. FDIC insurance is backed by the full faith and credit of the government of the United States, and according to the FDIC, "since its start in 1933 no depositor has ever lost a penny of FDIC-insured funds".
In the United States, banking had begun by the 1780s, along with the country's founding. It has developed into a highly influential and complex system of banking and financial services. Anchored by New York City and Wall Street, it is centered on various financial services, such as private banking, asset management, and deposit security.
Washington Mutual, Inc. was an American savings bank holding company based in Seattle. It was the parent company of WaMu Bank, which was the largest savings and loan association in the United States until its collapse in 2008.
A savings and loan association (S&L), or thrift institution, is a financial institution that specializes in accepting savings deposits and making mortgage and other loans. The terms "S&L" and "thrift" are mainly used in the United States; similar institutions in the United Kingdom, Ireland and some Commonwealth countries include building societies and trustee savings banks. They are often mutually held, meaning that the depositors and borrowers are members with voting rights, and have the ability to direct the financial and managerial goals of the organization like the members of a credit union or the policyholders of a mutual insurance company. While it is possible for an S&L to be a joint-stock company, and even publicly traded, in such instances it is no longer truly a mutual association, and depositors and borrowers no longer have membership rights and managerial control. By law, thrifts can have no more than 20 percent of their lending in commercial loans—their focus on mortgage and consumer loans makes them particularly vulnerable to housing downturns such as the deep one the U.S. experienced in 2007.
The savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and 1990s was the failure of 32% of savings and loan associations (S&Ls) in the United States from 1986 to 1995. An S&L or "thrift" is a financial institution that accepts savings deposits and makes mortgage, car and other personal loans to individual members.
Capital One Financial Corporation is an American bank holding company specializing in credit cards, auto loans, banking, and savings accounts, headquartered in McLean, Virginia with operations primarily in the United States. It is on the list of largest banks in the United States, is the third largest issuer of Visa and Mastercard credit cards and is one of the largest car finance companies in the United States.
The Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) was a United States federal agency under the Department of the Treasury that chartered, supervised, and regulated all federally chartered and state-chartered savings banks and savings and loans associations. It was created in 1989 as a renamed version of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, another federal agency. Like other U.S. federal bank regulators, it was paid by the banks it regulated. The OTS was initially seen as an aggressive regulator, but was later lax. Declining revenues and staff led the OTS to market itself to companies as a lax regulator in order to get revenue.
The Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989 (FIRREA), is a United States federal law enacted in the wake of the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s.
Beal Bank is an American bank, which was founded by Texas-based entrepreneur D. Andrew "Andy" Beal. It includes two separately chartered banks, Beal Bank and Beal Bank USA. Each entity is insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).
NetBank, formerly named Atlanta Internet Bank (1996) and Net.B@nk (1998), was a direct bank.
The R & G Financial Corporation was a financial holding company located in San Juan, Puerto Rico. On April 30, 2010, its bank failed and its deposits and assets were seized by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Its deposits and assets were subsequently sold to Scotiabank. On May 14, R & G Financial Corporation filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
IndyMac, a contraction of Independent National Mortgage Corporation, was an American bank based in California that failed in 2008 and was seized by the United States Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).
John M. Reich was a Director of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). He was sworn in on January 15, 2001, following an appointment by President of the United States Bill Clinton and served on the FDIC Board for eight years. Reich served as Vice Chairman of the Board of the FDIC from November 2002 until he was nominated on June 7, 2005 by President George W. Bush to be Director of the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS), and the U.S. Senate confirmed his nomination on July 29, 2005. He also served as Acting Chairman of the FDIC from July to August 2001. As Deputy Chairman, 2001–2005, Reich served as the Chair of FDIC's Audit Committee during a time when the General Accounting Office issued reportable conditions regarding information security at the Corporation.
A bank failure occurs when a bank is unable to meet its obligations to its depositors or other creditors because it has become insolvent or too illiquid to meet its liabilities. A bank usually fails economically when the market value of its assets declines to a value that is less than the market value of its liabilities. The insolvent bank either borrows from other solvent banks or sells its assets at a lower price than its market value to generate liquid money to pay its depositors on demand. The inability of the solvent banks to lend liquid money to the insolvent bank creates a bank panic among the depositors as more depositors try to take out cash deposits from the bank. As such, the bank is unable to fulfill the demands of all of its depositors on time. A bank may be taken over by the regulating government agency if its shareholders' equity are below the regulatory minimum.
BanxQuote was the foremost provider and licensor of indexes and analytics used as a barometer of the U.S. banking and mortgage markets until its exit in 2010. Its bank rate website and consumer banking marketplace featured dynamically updated daily market rates on banking, mortgage and loan products throughout the United States, until its exit in 2010.
The government interventions during the subprime mortgage crisis were a response to the 2007–2009 subprime mortgage crisis and resulted in a variety of government bailouts that were implemented to stabilize the financial system during late 2007 and early 2008.
Wachovia was a diversified financial services company based in Charlotte, North Carolina. Before its acquisition by Wells Fargo and Company in 2008, Wachovia was the fourth-largest bank holding company in the United States, based on total assets. Wachovia provided a broad range of banking, asset management, wealth management, and corporate and investment banking products and services. At its height, it was one of the largest providers of financial services in the United States, operating financial centers in 21 states and Washington, D.C., with locations from Connecticut to Florida and west to California. Wachovia provided global services through more than 40 offices around the world.
Guaranty Bank was a major bank based in Austin, which collapsed in 2009. It was formed in 1988 as part of Temple-Inland and in 2007 became a standalone company. At the time of its collapse, Guaranty was the second largest bank in Texas, with 162 branches across Texas and California, and had $13 billion in assets and held $12 billion in deposits. Major shareholders included billionaire investor Carl Icahn and hotel tycoon Robert Rowling, who jointly invested $600 million in the bank in 2008.
