Bank failures hit Puerto Rico hard
This past Friday seven additional banks went under, for a total of 64 failures so far this year. The FDIC took over the banks, including three in Puerto Rico which account for roughly a fourth of the island鈥檚 bank assets.
From The Wall Street Journal:
鈥淭hree of the banks [...] were located in Puerto Rico and held about $21 billion in assets. That鈥檚 about a quarter of the assets of the 10 banks headquartered on the island.
鈥淩egulators also shuttered CF Bancorp in Port Huron, Mich., which had 22 branches, $1.65 billion of assets, and $1.43 billion of deposits; Champion Bank in Creve Coeur, Mo., which had $187.3 million in assets and $153.8 million of deposits; BC National Banks in Butler, which had just $67.2 million of assets and $54.9 million of deposits; and Frontier Bank in Washington, which $3.5 billion of assets and $3.1 billion of assets鈥�
鈥溾�he seven failures cost the FDIC鈥檚 deposit insurance fund more than $7 billion.鈥�
By Saturday, FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair was already out in public with Puerto Rico Governor Luis Fortuno, trying desperately to put a positive spin on the matter. She described it as an optimistic 鈥渋nflection point,鈥� and that there are 鈥渟igns of repair.鈥�
It鈥檚 hard to buy that story though. shows that this is the largest day of bank failure since back in July of 2008. That was when IndyMac cost the FDIC $8 billion. Hopefully any future 鈥渟igns of repair鈥� will cost the FDIC a whole lot less.
You can see more details on the closures, as well as an interactive map, in The Wall Street Journal鈥檚 .
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