WASHINGTON — Federal regulators shut two community banks late Friday — the first failures of the new year — in what is expected to be a busy 2009 for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
First, regulators closed $431 million-asset National Bank of Commerce in Berkeley, Ill., and transferred all $402 million of its deposits to Republic Bank in Chicago. The failed bank's two branches will reopen as Republic branches on Saturday.
It was followed by the failure of $446 million-asset Bank of Clark County in Vancouver, Wash.
The FDIC said nonbrokered insured deposits at Clark County — which had a deposit total of $366.5 million — will be assumed by Umpqua Bank, in Roseburg, Ore. At the time of its failure, the Washington bank had roughly $39 million in uninsured deposits in 138 accounts, and $117.8 million in brokered deposits. Brokered depositors will be compensated for their insured portion by the FDIC directly, the agency said.
Clark County branches will reopen on Tuesday as branches of Umpqua.
The failures commence the FDIC's resolution activity in a year that most experts believe will equal or exceed the 25 closures suffered by the industry in 2008, when the housing crisis took direct hits at banks' balance sheets.
In the Illinois bank's failure, Republic agreed to buy $366.6 million of assets from National Bank at a $45 million discount, the FDIC said. Umpqua, meanwhile, will buy $30.4 million of the Washington bank's assets, made up of cash, cash equivalents, marketable securities and loans secured by deposits.
The FDIC said Bank of Clark County's failure is estimated to cost the agency between $120 and $145 million. The agency estimated that the cost of National Bank of Commerce's failure to the Deposit Insurance Fund will be $97.1 million.
