These 13 Banks Have Failed and Gone Under in the Last 5 Years

Several banks have gone under in the last five years. Some were high-profile institutions making national headlines, but most were small-town banks that got into poorly underwritten loans or had management issues.

When banks such as these close, you may begin to worry about your own bank — and where you stand financially.

Curious about which banks have failed recently? Here's a complete list of banks that have gone belly-up over the past five years and why.

This small-town bank in Iowa became insolvent in November 2023. Examiners realized the bank had heavy out-of-territory and out-of-state loan losses, leading to its insolvency.

Iowa Trust & Savings Bank purchased deposits from Citizens, ensuring no depositors lost their cash.

Citizens Bank’s failure in May 2023 cost the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) an estimated $14.8 million.

The story of this Kansas bank is more interesting than overextended loans or poor management: The bank's CEO allegedly wired $47.1 million of the bank’s assets in a cryptocurrency scheme known as “pig butchering.”

This drain on assets made the bank insolvent in the summer of 2023, and the cost of the failure was $54 million, which, according to the FDIC, meant the DIF suffered a material loss.

An old-fashioned bank run was the cause of this California bank’s undoing.

Customers lost confidence in the market after Silicon Valley Bank’s failure, and First Republic Bank’s management strategies made it more vulnerable to changes in interest rates and reliant on depositor loyalty.

The bank’s failure in May 2023 cost the DIF an estimated $13 billion. First Republic Bank had $212 billion in assets, making its failure the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history.

The largest bank failure was Washington Mutual in 2008. That bank had $307 billion in assets.

In March 2023, New York’s Signature Bank failed due to rapid and unrestrained growth, which occurred without proper risk management guardrails.

Like First Republic Bank, Signature Bank was also a victim of the deposit-run contagion started by the Silicon Valley Bank failure.

Signature Bank had $209 billion in assets, making its failure the third-largest in U.S. banking history. The estimated cost to the DIF at the time of failure was $2.5 billion.

This bank in the technology hub of California made national headlines when it failed on March 10, 2023.

Silicon Valley Bank had relatively little in cash deposits and put much of its holdings in Treasury bonds. When the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, the value of Treasury bonds fell.

At the same time, customers working in the tech industry began making large withdrawals, forcing Silicon Valley Bank to sell some of its Treasury bonds at a $1.8 billion loss to cover the withdrawals. That began the crisis that ended in the bank’s collapse.

The failure cost the DIF about $20 billion.

This bank suffered a slow decline from capital and asset quality problems. When it went under in October 2020, it had approximately $70 million in assets, which cost the DIF $18.3 million.

This small-town Kansas bank had only two branches, which were absorbed by Equity Bank of Andover, Kansas.

Formerly headquartered in the Florida Panhandle, this bank was shuttered in October 2020.

Between 2002 and 2008, the bank started using a new growth strategy focused on commercial real estate. 

However, it did so without proper risk mitigation measures in place. The bank failed due to having many poor-quality assets, and it never recovered from the Great Recession.

At the time of closing, the bank’s failure represented a $10 million loss to the DIF.

According to the FDIC, this Texas bank failed in October 2020 because the bank’s president and senior vice president issued millions of dollars in fraudulent loans over many years. The president hid these loans from the board of directors and regulators.

The losses on these loans sapped the bank’s earnings, and it could not recover. Its failure cost the DIF around $21 million.

West Virginia was once the home of First State Bank. According to an FDIC report, nepotism may have been partly to blame for this bank’s demise, as the president and CEO had several family members on the bank’s executive staff and exerted considerable influence over them.

The bank’s failure in April 2020 caused a $47 million loss to the DIF.

Ericson is a small village in central Nebraska and home to the former Ericson State Bank, which closed on Valentine’s Day 2020. It was purchased and assumed by Farmers and Merchants Bank of Milford, Nebraska.

The failure resulted from large out-of-territory commercial losses on loans as well as poor management. The failure cost the DIF $14.1 million.

City National had one office and one branch in Newark, New Jersey, and another in New York City.

The bank’s management tried a new business strategy, which increased transaction activity but resulted in the bank’s noncompliance with the Bank Secrecy Act/Anti-Money Laundering regulations.

The bank’s failure in November 2019 cost the DIF $2.5 million.

According to the FDIC, this small bank in Louisa, Kentucky, suffered from an “ineffective and dysfunctional” board of directors and executive management.

This led to poor risk management, weak internal controls, and inaccurate accounting, affecting the bank’s performance. The bank became unprofitable in 2015 and closed in October 2019.

The failure resulted in a $4.5 million loss to the DIF.

Resolute Bank had only a single branch in Maumee, Ohio, when it failed in June 2019.

While the FDIC report did not give details, it cited “unsafe and unsound practices” as reasons for the small bank’s failure.

Resolute’s failure resulted in a loss of $2.2 million to the DIF.

Peace of mind for your money starts with choosing an FDIC-insured bank. This ensures your deposits are protected up to $250,000 in case of bank failure.

To lower your financial stress further, consider checking the bank's ratings from reputable agencies like Fitch or Moody's.

With this information, you can be confident that your bank is financially strong and will be there for you in the long run.