by Calculated Risk on 10/27/2012 01:11:00 PM

This is an unofficial list of Problem Banks compiled only from public sources.

Here is the unofficial problem bank list for Oct 26, 2012. (table is sortable by assets, state, etc.)

Changes and comments from surferdude808:

The FDIC released its actions through September 2012 and closed a bank this week. There were five removals and four additions leaving the Unofficial Problem Bank List with 864 institutions with assets of $330.4 billion. A year ago, the list had 985 institutions with assets of $406.6 billion. For the month, changes included 11 action terminations, four failures, one unassisted merger, and six additions. Overall, it was a quiet month as it was the fewest action terminations since February 2012 and the fewest additions since the publication of the list.

Actions were terminated against Metro Bank, Lemoyne, PA ($2.4 billion Ticker: METR); Heritage Bank of Central Illinois, Trivoli, IL ($308 million); Minnwest Bank South, Tracy, MN ($213 million); and Freedom Bank, Sterling, IL ($76 million). The failure was Nova Bank, Berwyn, PA ($483 million), which the FDIC could not find a buyer for.

The additions were First State Financial, Inc., Pineville, KY ($395 million); Golden Eagle Community Bank, Woodstock, IL ($152 million); Signature Bank of Georgia, Sandy Springs, GA ($136 million); and Talbot State Bank, Woodland, GA ($72 million). Who would have guessed there are still some unidentified problem banks in Georgia.

CR Note: The FDIC's official problem bank list is comprised of banks with a CAMELS rating of 4 or 5, and the list is not made public. (CAMELS is the FDIC rating system, and stands for Capital adequacy, Asset quality, Management, Earnings, Liquidity and Sensitivity to market risk. The scale is from 1 to 5, with 1 being the strongest.)

As a substitute for the CAMELS ratings, surferdude808 is using publicly announced formal enforcement actions, and also media reports and company announcements that suggest to us an enforcement action is likely, to compile a list of possible problem banks in the public interest.

When the list was increasing, the official and "unofficial" counts were about the same. Now, with the number of problem banks declining, the unofficial list is lagging the official list. This probably means regulators are changing the CAMELS rating on some banks before terminating the formal enforcement actions.

Earlier:
• Summary for Week Ending Oct 26th