New Bank Failures: Week of April 13

New bank failures for the week of April 13 include Cape Fear Bank of Wilmington, N.C. and New Frontier Bank of Greeley, Colo., the 22nd and 23rd banks shuttered by regulators this year.

All 48 bank failures since the beginning of 2008 are detailed on TheStreet.com's interactive bank failure map:

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First Federal Savings and Loan Association of Charleston, held by First Financial Holdings (FFCH) acquired all the deposits of Cape Fear Bank, held by Cape Fear Bank Corp. (CAPE).

For the third time in less than a month, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was unable to simply sell a failed institution's deposits to another institution. The FDIC created the Deposit Insurance National Bank of Greeley, which was to operate for about 30 days and allow New Frontier's retail savings and checking depositors to move their insured balances to other institutions. The rest of New Frontier's deposits were to be returned directly to depositors or, in some cases, to brokers.

Two weeks ago, SunTrust Bank of Atlanta, held by SunTrust Banks Inc. (STI), agreed to act as paying agent on the behalf of the FDIC receivership formed when Omni National Bank of Atlanta failed. The agreement covers insured retail deposits, which must be withdrawn or transferred to new SunTrust accounts by April 27. There were about $2 million in uninsured deposits which would not be paid out by SunTrust.

When a bank or savings and loan institution fails and deposit balances exceeding FDIC insurance limits are not acquired by another institution, depositors become creditors to the FDIC receivership for the amount of their uninsured balances. Any money recovered on these balances is called a "dividend." There were no advance dividends announced for New Frontier's uninsured depositors.

Not surprisingly, states at the center of the residential housing boom have produced the greatest number of failing institutions. Out of 48 bank and thrift failures since the beginning of 2008, nine were in Georgia, eight were in California and four in Florida.

The FDIC's estimated total cost to its deposit insurance fund for the bank failures during the first quarter of 2009 was $2.3 billion. Many of the failed institutions were included in TheStreet.com's list of undercapitalized banks and thrifts, which was recently updated.

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