US bank failures: FDIC in a fix

Sheila Bair is running short of funds. But she is right to want to raise them in a way that doesn’t create a panic.

There seems to be a growing panic at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation as the number of US bank failures increases and the deposit insurance fund becomes depleted. At the end of September, FDIC proposed that institutions be required to prepay their quarterly risk-based assessments for the next three years, starting in the fourth quarter of 2009. The move would bring in about $45 billion. At the end of June the fund was down to just $10 billion yet FDIC estimates losses of more than $70 billion during the next five years as bank collapses increase.

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