What was the First Bank failure in US history?
The Panic of 1819
The history of bank failures in the U.S. begins just over 40 years after the Declaration of Independence was signed. In 1819, the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars led to global market adjustments that tossed the U.S. into its first of many financial crises.
The Panic of 1819
The history of bank failures in the U.S. begins just over 40 years after the Declaration of Independence was signed. In 1819, the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars led to global market adjustments that tossed the U.S. into its first of many financial crises.
The banking panics in 1930 and early 1931 were regional in nature. The nature of the financial crisis changed in the fall of 1931, when the commercial banking crisis spread throughout the entire nation.
First Republic Bank was among a few regional banks that failed in early 2023 due to bank runs driven in part by the high volume of uninsured deposits that they carried, along with financial struggles caused by the broader interest rate environment.
The collapses of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank in March 2023—then the second- and third-largest bank failures in U.S. history—took consumers by surprise. Subsequently, three more banks failed in 2023: First Republic Bank in May, Heartland Tri-State Bank in July and Citizens Bank of Sac City in November.
After the charter for the First Bank of the United States expired in 1811, Stephen Girard purchased most of its stock as well as the building and its furnishings on South Third Street in Philadelphia and opened his own bank, later known as Girard Bank.
Two major California banks — Silicon Valley Bank and First Republic — have failed. While some banking industry leaders have said the immediate crisis is over, stock prices for other regional banks, including PacWest and Western Alliance, fell this week.
The largest bank failure ever occurred when Washington Mutual Bank went under in 2008. At the time, it had about $307 billion in assets. During the uncertainty of the banking crisis, however, Washington Mutual experienced a bank run where customers withdrew almost $17 billion in assets in less than 10 days.
For just over one month, Silicon Valley Bank was the second-largest bank failure in US history. That was until First Republic Bank, a California lender that catered to wealthy clients, knocked it off that spot. First Republic was seized by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
Bank Failures in Brief – Summary
There were 566 bank failures from 2001 through 2024. See Summary by Year below. For more bank failure information on a specific year, select a date from the drop down menu to the right or select a year within the graph.
What banks no longer exist?
| Bank NameBank | CityCity | Closing DateClosing |
|---|---|---|
| Silicon Valley Bank | Santa Clara | March 10, 2023 |
| Almena State Bank | Almena | October 23, 2020 |
| First City Bank of Florida | Fort Walton Beach | October 16, 2020 |
| The First State Bank | Barboursville | April 3, 2020 |
Many smaller banks, such as this one in Haverhill, Iowa, lacked sufficient reserves to stay in business and became no more than convenient billboards. Many of the small banks had lent large portions of their assets for stock market speculation and were virtually put out of business overnight when the market crashed.
The most common cause of bank failure is when the value of the bank's assets falls below the market value of the bank's liabilities, which are the bank's obligations to creditors and depositors. This might happen because the bank loses too much on its investments.
On Monday, May 1, 2023, First Republic Bank was closed by the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) was appointed Receiver.
First Republic is now part of JPMorgan Chase.
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What is the No. 1 bank in America? J.P. Morgan Chase is the number one bank in America in terms of total assets held, according to the Federal Reserve.
The collapses of First Republic Bank, Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank were the second-, third- and fourth-largest bank failures in the history of the United States, respectively, smaller only than the collapse of Washington Mutual during the 2007–2008 financial crisis.
2024 in Brief
There are no bank failures in 2024. See detailed descriptions below. For more bank failure information on a specific year, select a date from the drop down menu to the right or select a month within the graph.
Future Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton founds the Bank of New York, the oldest continuously operating bank in the United States—operating today as BNY Mellon.
First Bank of Nigeria is a multinational bank and financial services company in Lagos, Nigeria. First Bank is owned by FBN Holdings PLC, which in itself has diversified ownership with over 1.3 million shareholders.
What was the first bank in history?
The oldest bank still in existence is Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, headquartered in Siena, Italy, which has been operating continuously since 1472. Until the end of 2002, the oldest bank still in operation was the Banco di Napoli headquartered in Naples, Italy, which had been operating since 1463.
| Bank | Forbes Advisor Rating | Products |
|---|---|---|
| Chase Bank | 5.0 | Checking, Savings, CDs |
| Bank of America | 4.2 | Checking, Savings, CDs |
| Wells Fargo Bank | 4.0 | Savings, checking, money market accounts, CDs |
| Citi® | 4.0 | Checking, savings, CDs |
Companies Considered Too Big to Fail
The Bank of New York Mellon Corp. Citigroup Inc. The Goldman Sachs Group Inc. JPMorgan Chase & Co.
The worst banks are Wells Fargo and Citibank. Wells Fargo is the worst bank overall, with a high percentage of unresolved complaints and loss of Better Business Bureau accreditation. Citibank has a string of high-profile cases involving operational chaos and regulatory fines.
Foreigners with bank accounts in the United States rushed to convert deposits to gold, primarily in the New York money market. The effect was a liquidity crisis that caused the failure of 2,293 banks in 1931, or nearly four times the average annual number of failures during the 1920s.
