Wachovia and WaMu — TKO

September 29th, 2008

WaMu (Washington Mutual) was seized by the FDIC last Thursday, 9/25/08. JP Morgan came in to gobble them up. It gives JP Morgan access to a lot of bank branches in areas they didn’t have a prescence. Wachovia wasn’t seized, but the FDIC orchestrated a buy-out by Citigroup. Frankly, I thought Citigroup had enough problems [Read More…]

FDIC Simplifies Coverage Rules

September 26th, 2008

The FDIC announced today an interim rule that makes it much, much easier to determine coverage for Revocable Trust Accounts, also known as payable-on-death (POD) or living trust accounts. Before today, you had to have qualifying beneficiaries on the account. Now, the beneficiary can be anyone, the bank’s records just need to specify who they [Read More…]

They Want How Much?

September 24th, 2008

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke have asked the congress to approve a $700BB Bail-out of the banks. They had the gall to want this with no strings attached. I’m a conservative republican, but that doesn’t mean I agree with the administration lock, stock, and barrel. Thankfully, Congress is asking good [Read More…]

Bail-outs, Bail-outs, Anybody Need A Bail-out?

September 19th, 2008

[Disclaimer: Reading this may cause anxiety, distress, depression, heart palpitations, or any other number of potential side affects. Read at your own risk.] I am not a big fan of bail-outs. So far the Gov’t has just been throwing money around, our tax money, to bail out private businesses that made bad business decisions. Why [Read More…]

Lehmen and Wamu, The Rumors Are Flying

September 12th, 2008

The rumor mills have been in high gear today. Lehmen Bros. is rumored to be in negotiations for a 3-way split. The suiters supposedly are Bank of America (remember they also bailed out Countrywide), an Asian company, and some Private Banking Group. Official news may be let out on Sunday. What ever happended to not [Read More…]

Kansas Bankers Surety Calling It Quits

September 10th, 2008

Kansas Bankers Surety Co. has long been in the business of providing excess insurance on deposits above the FDIC limits. They provided this service mainly to other banks seeking to take large blocks of public deposits and the additional insurance would cover the amounts above the $100,000 FDIC limits in case of a bank failure. [Read More…]

Have We Hit Bottom

August 19th, 2008

Many commentators are saying we’ve hit bottom. I’m not so sure. Anyway, here are some links to articles out there. First, from CNN, an article about the dreaded Stagflation or maybe just stagnation. http://money.cnn.com/2008/08/19/markets/thebuzz/index.htm?postversion=2008081911 It appears that our economic gloom is finding its way around the world. Although, it will probably help keep inflation in [Read More…]

Calculating FDIC Insurance

August 4th, 2008

Another Bank, First Priority Bank, FL (FDIC# 57523) was taken over by the FDIC on Friday, August 1, 2008. The insured deposits have been transferred over to SunTrust Bank, Georgia (FDIC# 867). This follows another takeover a couple of weeks ago of First National Bank of Nevada and First Heritiage Bank. The insured deposits were [Read More…]

FNBO Direct Savings Rate

July 29th, 2008

Updated 3/23/2020 FNBO Direct is the internet arm of First National Bank of Omaha. They are currently offering an internet savings account rate of 1.00%. FNB of Omaha is a good size bank with $21.1BB in assets as of Q3 2019. They are well capitalized. They certainly look better than many other banks in their [Read More…]

IndyMac Bank Closed

July 14th, 2008

(Update 3/2009)–IndyMac Federal Bank was acquired after government financial assistance and subsequently operated as part of OneWest Bank, FSB (58978). For more information visit the FDIC page. Select “Generate history” for a full history by date. (Update 7/14/08 6:40 AM PST)— IndyMac Federal Bank, FSB is the new name. The website has a link to [Read More…]