Bank Failures in Brief – 2008 (2024)

FAQs

What was the bank failure in 2008? ›

The receivership of Washington Mutual Bank by federal regulators on September 26, 2008, was the largest bank failure in U.S. history. Regulators simultaneously brokered the sale of most of the banks's assets to JPMorgan Chase, which planned to write down the value of Washington Mutual's loans at least $31 billion.

Thousands of banks failed during the Depression and loss of confidence caused anxious depositors to create "runs" on banks as they tried to withdraw their money before the banks collapsed.

Since the establishment of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) in 1934, there have been 3,516 bank failures in the United States. Washington Mutual's failure in 2008, during the financial crisis, is the largest in the country's history. It stemmed from the bank's risky mortgage lending practices.

The news: Last Friday, Pennsylvania financial regulators seized and shut down Philadelphia-based Republic First Bank in the first FDIC-insured bank failure of 2024.

The catalysts for the GFC were falling US house prices and a rising number of borrowers unable to repay their loans. House prices in the United States peaked around mid 2006, coinciding with a rapidly rising supply of newly built houses in some areas.

6 Some of the largest banks to fail were investment banks, including Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns. JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Bank of America were all bailed out by the federal government and did not fail.

First Republic Bank failed on April 28, 2023. Signature Bank failed on March 12, 2023. Silicon Valley Bank failed on March 10, 2023. Almena State Bank failed on October 23, 2020.

Bank regulators view any ratio over 300% as excess exposure to CRE, which puts the bank at greater risk of failure. The banks of greatest concern are Flagstar Bank and Zion Bancorporation, according to the screener. Flagstar Bank reported $113 billion in assets with a total CRE of $51 billion.

The failures of SVB, Signature and First Republic mark three of the four largest failures of a federally insured bank ever. The largest, Washington Mutual, crashed at the start of the Great Recession in 2008.

JPMorgan Chase, the financial institution that owns Chase Bank, topped our experts' list because it's designated as the world's most systemically important bank on the 2023 G-SIB list. This designation means it has the highest loss absorbency requirements of any bank, providing more protection against financial crisis.

Are credit unions safer than banks? ›

Generally, credit unions are viewed as safer than banks, although deposits at both types of financial institutions are usually insured at the same dollar amounts. The FDIC insures deposits at most banks, and the NCUA insures deposits at most credit unions.

In 2008, nearly 1,000 companies received bailout funds through the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP). Some of the biggest bank bailout recipients included Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo. Other businesses like General Motors and Chrysler also received funds through TARP.

According to the U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research (the official arbiter of U.S. recessions) the recession began in December 2007 and ended in June 2009, and thus extended over eighteen months.

The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, also known as the "bank bailout of 2008" or the "Wall Street bailout", was a United States federal law enacted during the Great Recession, which created federal programs to "bail out" failing financial institutions and banks.

The brokerage unit of Lehman Brothers completed its liquidation process on September 28, 2022, after paying out over $115 billion to its customers and creditors over the course of 14 years.

Merrill Lynch was sold to Bank of America for $50 billion in September 2008. Since then, the merged entity has soared in value, and Bank of America appears to believe it's time to move on. The company brought in $7.3 billion in profit last quarter. Profits in 2018 hit $28.1 billion, a record.