How Has the Financial Crisis Affected Bank Closures?

Almost 15 times as many U.S. banks have closed since 2007 — 359 of them so far — as closed between 2000 and 2006, before the worldwide financial crisis began. A mere 24 U.S. banks failed from 2000-2006, and just three more failed in 2007. The rash of closures began in 2008, when 25 closed, followed by 140 failures in 2009 and a peak of 157 closures in 2010, which was the most in one year since the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and '90s.

More about bank closures:

• The states with high numbers of bank closures include Illinois, Georgia, Florida and California.


• The 297 bank failures in 2009 and 2010 cost the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) more than $50 billion US Dollars (USD), which as of the end of 2010 was actually some $7 billion USD in deficit — though the FDIC states that depositors' money is still insured.


• Banks closed at a rate of about three per week in 2010. So far in 2011, that rate has dropped to slightly more than two per week.