The FDIC apparently took the holiday weekend off: no banks were closed yesterday in the United States.
With half of 2011 gone, here’s a little data from the “state stress level” compiled by surferdude808 and available here on Calculated Risk:
- In 2007, Georgia had 352 banks.
- 65 Georgia banks have failed since the bust began in 2007. (Highest in the nation; Florida is 2nd with 51)
- 63 Georgia banks are known to be on the “unofficial problem bank list” — i.e., under some form of regulator scrutiny right now (5th in the nation, behind Illinois, Florida, Minnesota, and California)
- 26 other Georgia banks have exited the “problem bank list” in some way other than failure, such as the end of enforcement action because the bank has become stronger, unassisted merger, etc.
- Adding up all the banks that are or have been listed as problem banks, plus those who have failed, we get 43.8% of Georgia banks that have been sufficiently stressed to warrant regulator action (that % is 6th in the nation behind Arizona, Washington, Nevada, Florida, and Oregon)
Some comparisons of states in the Southeast:
- Georgia: 352 banks in 2007, 65 failures, 63 currently on the unofficial problem bank list
- Florida: 317 banks in 2007, 51 failures, 77 currently on the unofficial problem bank list
- South Carolina:Â 93 banks in 2007, 6 failures, 20 currently on the unofficial problem bank list
- North Carolina:Â 112 banks in 2007, 3 failures, 17 currently on the unofficial problem bank list
- Tennessee:Â 203 banks in 2007, 0 failures, 24 currently on the unofficial problem bank list
- Alabama:Â 160 banks in 2007, 6 failures, 26 currently on the unofficial problem bank list
- Mississippi:Â 97 banks in 2007, 2 failures, 2 currently on the unofficial problem bank list
- Louisiana:Â 162 banks in 2007, 1 failure, 8 currently on the unofficial problem bank list
- Arkansas:Â 150 banks in 2007, 2 failures, 16 currently on the unofficial problem bank list
I’ve made a number of posts about Georgia’s banking crisis, including this overview at the end of January. At that point, there were 64 Georgia banks on the unofficial problem bank list. We’ve dropped only to 63 despite 14 Georgia bank failures in 2011. (I.e., more banks have been added throughout the year.)
In that post in January, I predicted that the FDIC’s pace of closures, which averaged about 3 per week in 2010, would increase in 2011. Wrong. Half way through the year, just 48 banks in the U.S. have been shuttered, less than 2 per week.
I so far have no clear explanation for the slower pace of closures. With just over 1,000 banks in the U.S. on the unofficial problem bank list, it’s a bit of a puzzle. Perhaps more banks are improving their condition, even if they are still in serious trouble, and the FDIC is stepping back to see if some of these banks can return to health on their own. Perhaps there is still some hope that the economy — and real estate prices — will pick up, which would greatly reduce the pressure on some banks. Perhaps the FDIC is having greater difficulty finding banks willing to acquire the banks it plans to close.
While having a large # of banks seems to correlate generally with the overall level of stress, note of the 6 states with more banks than Georgia in 2007, all are far below us in the number of failures. Here is a quick list of state/total banks in 2007/failures:
- Illinois/671/42
- Texas/659/8
- Minnesota/443/16
- Iowa/391/1
- Missouri/361/11
- Kansas/357/7
- Georgia/352/65
As I consistently note, Georgia leaders have so far made no effort to determine  how state regulation and enforcement contributed to the ongoing crisis.