The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. grew its fund for bank failures to $15.3 billion as of March 31 on the higher premiums charged to banks.
Since 2008, regulators had to shutter 429 banks. At the end of 2009, the deposit insurance fund fell to a low point of negative $20.9 billion. The DIF increased by nearly $3.5 billion from the end of 2011.
At the same point last year, the fund stood at a negative $1.1 billion, according to a report from the FDIC Chief Financial Officer Steven App.
A recent forecast from the FDIC showed the fund would reach a reserve ratio of 1.15% by the second half of 2018, which would equal a mark required by previous law. The Dodd-Frank Act raised the minimum reserve ratio to 1.35%, which the FDIC is required to reach by September 2020.
The FDIC took in $3.4 billion in assessment premiums in the first quarter, the highest total in one year.
The DIF investment portfolio, which contains failed bank assets, declined roughly 6% from one year ago to $35.2 billion.
“The decrease was primarily the result of having to fund 16 bank failures during the first quarter of 2012,” App said in the report. “Although seven of these failures were resolved using cash-conserving shared-loss transactions requiring substantially lower initial resolution payments, there were a few resolution transactions, including two deposit payout transactions, which required relatively large initial resolution payments.”
