Lists of America's Most Troubled Banks

With the failure of Indymac, we're seeing more news stories about what banks may be next. The FDIC maintains a list of the troubled banks, but it keeps the list secret so we don't see bank runs like what happened last week at Indymac. The list supposedly has 90 troubled banks. ABC News just released a privately-compiled list of 10 troubled banks. The list is based on the Texas Ratio which I first described in this May post.

I found another list of banks that may be considered trouble at Weiss Ratings. IndyMac happens to be the first one on this list. I don't know when this list was compiled, but on top of the list it has "data as of 6/20/2008". From the Internet Archive I noticed the list on August 3, 2007 had NetBank being the first on the list (NetBank was closed on 9/28/07).

In a previous post today I described some issues you may have if you use revocable trust accounts to provide FDIC insurance over $100K. If you remain under $100K for non-IRA individual accounts, there should be no real worries if your bank fails. My savings account at Indymac was accessible online as promised early Monday. But I guess I should point out about a few potential minor issues: the CD may be closed early (but with no penalty) and your access to a brokered CD may be delayed by several weeks.

Here's a list of my posts on Indymac and other past failed banks along with some posts detailing the FDIC and NCUA:

• Recent Indymac posts
• Posts on the failure of ANB Financial - includes case study of one of my readers who had $415K in deposits
• Posts on the failure of NetBank
• Facts about FDIC and NCUA Insurance Coverage
• Extending FDIC Coverage Over $100K