Bank failures bring year's total to 72

United States bank failures rose to 72 this year with the collapse of two lenders in Florida and one in Oregon.

Regulators shut First State Bank and Community National Bank, both in Sarasota, Florida, and Community First Bank in Prineville, Oregon, said Federal Deposit Insurance (FDIC), the receiver.

Closing the lenders, with combined assets of US$769 million ($1.1 billion) and deposits of US$662 million, will cost the deposit insurance fund about US$185 million.

Regulators are closing banks at the fastest pace in 17 years as losses mount from unpaid real-estate debt.

The FDIC is offering to share losses with potential buyers, reviving a practice used in the US savings-and-loan crisis of the late 1980s.

FDIC said Stearns Bank of St Cloud, Minnesota, would assume almost all deposits of the Florida banks. First State, the biggest of the three failures with US$463 million in assets and US$387 million in deposits, had nine branches along Florida's Gulf coast that are due to open this week as Stearns branches.

Community National's four offices will also open as Stearns.

Stearns is paying a 0.25 per cent premium for Community National's US$93 million in deposits and the FDIC is sharing losses on most of the US$545 million assets being acquired from the two failed lenders.

Home Federal Bank is buying most of Community First's US$182 million in deposits and 94 per cent of its US$209 million in assets. The FDIC is sharing losses on US$155 million of assets.

- BLOOMBERG