Regulators shut 2 banks in US; 127 total in 2010

Regulators closed two more troubled US banks on Friday, bringing the tally this year to 127.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp said regulators closed North County Bank, Arlington, Washington. The bank had about $288.8 million in assets and $276.1 million in deposits.

Washington Banking Company's subsidiary, Whidbey Island Bank, Coupeville, Washington, will assume all of the deposits.                                           

The FDIC also announced regulators closed Haven Trust Bank Florida, Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, which had about $148.6 million in assets and $133.6 million in deposits.  First Southern Bank, Boca Raton, Florida, assumed the deposits.                 

The failures on Friday are estimated to cost the FDIC's insurance fund a total of $104.7 million.                                           

The FDIC, which insures individual accounts up to $250,000, anticipates that the number of failures this year will exceed the 2009 total of 140, but that total assets of this year''s failures will probably be lower.  

The agency gave an update on the overall health of the bank industry on August 31, saying that while it sees improvements in the industry the struggling economy continues to be a factor in the the reluctance of businesses and consumers to borrow.

It is now mostly smaller institutions that are collapsing as they deal with problems in the commercial real estate market. Community banks tend to have higher concentrations of these loans than larger banks. 

The largest bank to fail since the start of the financial crisis in 2007 is Washington Mutual, which had $307 billion in assets when it was seized in September 2008.