Washington regulators announced that five banks were closed down on May 28, 2010. Three of the banks are in Florida, One in Nevada and one in California.
That brings the total US Bank failure number to 78 this year.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over the Florida banks, all owned by holding company Bank of Florida Corp. They are Bank of Florida-Southeast, based in Fort Lauderdale, with $595.3 million in assets; Bank of Florida-Southwest, based in Naples, with $640.9 million in assets; and Bank of Florida-Tampa Bay, based in Tampa, with $245.2 million in assets.
The FDIC also seized Las Vegas-based Sun West Bank, with $360.7 million in assets, and Granite Community Bank, located in Granite Bay, Calif., with $102.9 million in assets.
The number of banks on the FDIC’s confidential “problem” list jumped to 775 in the first quarter from 702 three months earlier, even as the industry as a whole had its best quarter in two years.
The FDIC expects the cost of resolving failed banks to grow to about $100 billion over the next four years.
Every time you buy something with a credit card or a debit card, the retailer you buy it from doesn’t get the full amount of the charge. Visa and MasterCard collect an interchange fee of up to 2.95% plus a small fixed amount per transaction.
For the most part, we never seen the direct impact of interchange fees. The agreements that merchants enter with Visa and MasterCard don’t allow them to tack on interchange fees as a surcharge to customers, and although offering a discount for cash is permitted, cash discounts haven’t really caught on outside of gas stations.
Therefore because we never really see a direct impact on the interchange fees, we may never see any direct benefit from all the proposed legislation that attempt to limit such fees.
Some argue that by reducing their interchange fee expenses, retailers will be able to pass on savings through lower prices. But given how the charges were hidden from consumers in the first place, struggling businesses are more likely to keep the savings to boost profits or cut losses rather than passing them on.
In fact, if legislation is passed to limit credit card interchange fees, then some consumers could end up being worse off. Interchange fees help provide funding for the credit card rewards that so many people get from their cards. Yet as we’ve already seen during the financial crisis, falling bank profits have started eating away at issuers’ willingness to continue rewards programs. With another source of revenue under attack, it’s even more likely that customers will face annual fees and other direct costs to offset lost interchange fee income.
Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. are the world’s biggest payment networks in the world. Today, the two entities may raise antitrust concerns if they “collude” with larger banks to block limits on debit- card interchange fees and scared off small banks into joining the opposition, according to a U.S. Senator.
Senator Richard Durbin stated, “If your companies were to coordinate such punitive actions in the same way that you appear to have coordinated your messaging tactics, serious concerns would be raised that you are engaging in an unlawful restraint of trade,” in a letter to the chief executive officers of San Francisco-based Visa and Purchase, New York-based MasterCard.
Senator Durbin is pushing legislation that empowers the Federal Reserve to impose limits on debit card interchange or “swipe” fees that merchants pay to accept the cards.
Curbing the fees, which average about 1 percent per transaction, could crimp revenue at Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., the biggest U.S. debit-card issuers.
The Senate voted 64 to 33 to approve the measure as part of the financial overhaul bill. The proposal becomes law if it survives a bipartisan panel assigned to merge the House and Senate versions of the legislation, and President Barack Obama signs it. Representative Carolyn Maloney, a New York Democrat nominated to participate in the talks, said she expects changes in Durbin’s proposal, without elaborating.