SHOOT: 99 so far this year. There are still 2.5 months to go.
The most severe financial crisis since the 1930s has hit banks large and small. With unemployment rising, consumer spending slack and businesses shuttered, experts say up to 400 more banks could fail in the next couple of years.
The 99 failures may not fully reflect the depth of banks' travails. Many more banks -- perhaps hundreds -- are so weak they could have been shut down already, experts say. Many vulnerable banks are in limbo. Regulators have threatened to close them unless they shore up their balance sheets, but the recession has made it difficult to raise capital or sell assets. The number of banks on the FDIC's confidential "problem list" jumped to 416 at the end of June from 305 in the first quarter. That's the most since June 1994.
NEW YORK (AP) -- Regulators have shut down San Joaquin Bank in California, marking the 99th failure this year of a federally insured bank.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was appointed receiver of San Joaquin Bank, based in Bakersfield, Calif. It had $775 million in assets and $631 million in deposits as of Sept. 29.
San Joaquin Bank's failure is expected to cost the FDIC's insurance fund $103 million.
Depositors' money is not in danger. The FDIC is backed by the government, and deposits are guaranteed up to $250,000 per account. But the deposit insurance fund has fallen into the red. The FDIC board recently proposed to have U.S. banks prepay about $45 billion of their insurance premiums -- three years' worth.
The 99 bank failures this year compare with 25 last year and three in 2007. It's the highest number in a year since 1992 during the savings-and-loan crisis, when 120 institutions collapsed. Closures peaked during that crisis in 1989, when 534 banks were shuttered.
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