Bank failures top 100, only part of industry woes

Seven banks -- three in Florida and one each in Georgia, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Illinois -- were shut today, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., pushing this year’s total to 105. That’s the most since the savings-and-loan crisis led regulators to shutter 179 institutions in 1992.

“We certainly know there are hundreds and hundreds of zombie banks out there,” Cassidy said. “The only alternative for them is to be seized and it’s only a matter of manpower and money before they get to it.”

The FDIC has proposed banks pay three years of advance deposit insurance fees to raise $45 billion and replenish the insurance fund. It costs anywhere from 25 percent to 30 percent of a failed bank’s assets to shut it down, Cassidy said.

“There are losses that will have to float through the system not just for one quarter or two, but for years,” said Paul Miller, a financial industry analyst at FBR Capital Markets in Arlington, Virginia. “I think you’ll see closures speed up after they replenish the fund.”