Silver State Bank of Henderson, Nevada, was closed by US regulators, the 11th bank to collapse this year amid a surge in soured real-estate loans stemming from the worst housing slump since the Depression.
Silver State, with US$2 billion in assets and US$1.7 billion in deposits, was shut by the Nevada Financial Institutions Division and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC), the FDIC said on Friday in a statement.
Nevada State Bank in Las Vegas will assume the deposits from Silver State, which was run by Silver State Bancorp. The failed bank’s offices will open tomorrow as branches of Nevada State and National Bank of Arizona, the FDIC said.
“Deposits will continue to be insured by the FDIC, so there is no need for customers to change their banking relationship,” it said.
The bank operates 13 branches in Nevada and four in Arizona, according to its Web site.
Banks are being closed at the fastest pace in 14 years and regulators have publicly ordered dozens of institutions to shore up capital or restrict their business. California lender IndyMac Bancorp Inc, which had US$32 billion in assets, was closed on July 11 in the third-largest bank seizure, contributing to a 14 percent drop in the US deposit insurance fund that had US$45.2 billion at the end of the second quarter.
In July, Silver State announced the resignation of Andrew McCain as a director of the bank. McCain, who had served on the audit committee and was a director for five months, is the son of Republican presidential nominee John McCain. A call to the campaign’s press line on Friday night wasn’t immediately returned.
Nevada State will buy insured deposits for a 1.3 percent premium, the FDIC said.
Silver State had about US$20 million in uninsured deposits in 500 accounts, the FDIC said.
The FDIC insures deposits of up to US$100,000 per depositor per bank, and up to US$250,000 for some retirement accounts at 8,451 institutions with US$13.3 trillion in assets.
The FDIC last week said 117 banks were classified as “problem” lenders in the second quarter, a 30 percent jump from the first quarter. The agency doesn’t identify “problem” lenders. Before Friday’s action, the FDIC had closed 37 banks since October 2000, according to a list at fdic.gov. In 1994, the government had closed a dozen institutions by the end of August.
US regulators this year also closed Integrity Bank of Alpharetta, Georgia, Columbian Bank and Trust of Topeka, Kansas, and First Priority Bank of Bradenton, Florida, in August; Reno-based First National Bank of Nevada and Newport Beach, California-based First Heritage Bank in July; Staples, Minnesota-based First Integrity Bank and ANB Financial in Bentonville, Arkansas, in May; Hume Bank in Hume, Missouri, in March; and Douglass National Bank in Kansas City, Missouri, in January.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
PRESSURE EXPECTED: The appreciation of the NT dollar reflected expectations that Washington would press Taiwan to boost its currency against the US dollar, dealers said Taiwan’s export-oriented semiconductor and auto part manufacturers are expecting their margins to be affected by large foreign exchange losses as the New Taiwan dollar continued to appreciate sharply against the US dollar yesterday. Among major semiconductor manufacturers, ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光), the world’s largest integrated circuit (IC) packaging and testing services provider, said that whenever the NT dollar rises NT$1 against the greenback, its gross margin is cut by about 1.5 percent. The NT dollar traded as strong as NT$29.59 per US dollar before trimming gains to close NT$0.919, or 2.96 percent, higher at NT$30.145 yesterday in Taipei trading
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