Establishment of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation helped eliminate bank panics, which had been a major contributor to business depressions. There has been no repetition of the deluge of bank failures that occurred in 1929-1933.
Although federal
Periodic bank panics became a characteristic of the nineteenth century economy. Consequently, state governments experimented with the equivalent of deposit insurance. A notable example was the Safety Fund system established by New York State in 1827. This provided insurance for banknotes and bank deposits, financed by an assessment on bank capital and supported by bank examination to monitor the quality of bank loans. However, a wave of
Federal government protection for holders of banknotes was established by U.S.
These suspensions focused attention on the “inelasticity” of currency supply–there was no way to increase the amount of currency in times when depositors wanted more cash. The desire to create an “elastic currency” was embodied in the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. Proposals for federal insurance of bank deposits were advanced as early as 1886, and federal insurance was advocated by William Jennings Bryan in his unsuccessful presidential campaign in 1908. Creation of the
Individual states started experimenting with deposit insurance, beginning with Oklahoma in 1907. By 1918, eight states had such programs. An important motive was to preserve the large number of small unit banks by maintaining restrictions on branch banking. Extending branch banking was frequently proposed as a way to reduce bank risks and failures. The farm depression of the 1920’s led to a large increase in the number of bank failures, and the state deposit-protection programs were unable to handle the claims against them. So all had shut down by 1929. However, most of the bank failures of the 1920’s involved small banks in small towns. In most of the country, bank deposits became more widely used. The number of checking accounts increased from 11 million in 1909 to more than 23 million in 1920.
As the economy slid into the Great Depression after 1929, an avalanche of bank failures occurred. Large-bank failures in 1930 involved banks that had taken unduly risky positions speculating in stocks or real estate. As bank failures escalated, depositors withdrew cash, putting pressure on the banks to contract their loans and to hold larger cash reserves. These tendencies, along with actual losses of deposit funds, worsened the economic downswing.
In the final months of 1932, a number of states imposed “bank holidays,” suspending cash payout in an effort to protect banks from the heavy currency withdrawal. On his inauguration in March, 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt extended the bank holiday to the entire country.
Congress quickly moved to try to reform the structure of the banking system. The Banking Act of 1933 created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), with capital provided by the Treasury, the Federal Reserve, and the banks. All member banks of the Federal Reserve system were required to have their deposits insured, and other banks could join the system if approved (and most of them did). Coverage began January 1, 1934. Initially, coverage was limited to $2,500 for each depositor; it was increased to $5,000 in mid-1934 and to $10,000 in 1950. Each bank was required to pay a premium based on deposits. The initial level of 0.5 percent of deposits proved far higher than necessary. From 1934 the premium was 0.085 percent. After 1950 premiums became flexible based on experience.
Within the first year, 1934, insurance covered 97 percent of commercial-bank deposits, and the proportion moved still higher. The FDIC was authorized (in cooperation with other banking agencies) to examine insured banks, and this power helped sustain bank solvency. The agency soon developed two ways of dealing with failing banks. One was simply to pay off covered deposits without delay and try to cash in the bank’s assets. Deposits exceeding the coverage limit might suffer some loss. The second approach was to merge the failing bank into another solvent institution. The latter arrangement would protect all depositors from loss.
The FDIC began operation under favorable conditions. Bad banks had been purged from the system, and surviving bankers were strongly risk averse. In the first decade of FDIC operation, an average of forty-nine banks failed each year. Between 1944 and 1960, there were fewer than ten failures each year, with negligible depositor losses. Never again would the financial system experience the kind of deflationary tidal wave experienced in 1929-1933.
The FDIC protected the deposits of customers at Washington Mutual, which failed in October, 2008.
In 1980, deposit insurance coverage was extended to $100,000 in the
The
The financial rescue package adopted by Congress on October 3, 2008, the
Friedman, Milton, and Anna J. Schwartz. A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1963. Pays extensive attention to banking evolution and particularly the developments of the 1920’s and 1930’s. Golembe, Carter. “The Deposit Insurance Legislation of 1933: An Examination of Its Antecedents and Purposes.” Political Science Quarterly 75, no. 2 (1960): 181-200. Good detail on pre-1933 developments; stresses that deposit insurance was long seen as a way of preserving the country’s system of small, independent banks. Mishkin, Frederic S. The Economics of Money, Banking, and Financial Markets. 7th ed. New York: Pearson/Addison Wesley, 2004. This college textbook thoroughly covers recent developments in bank supervision and deposit insurance. Redburn, F. Stevens. “Never Lost a Penny: An Assessment of Federal Deposit Insurance.” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 7, no. 4 (1988): 687-702. Very critical of the existing deposit insurance arrangements, which the author claims “threaten to destabilize the U.S. banking system.” Seidman, L. William. Full Faith and Credit. New York: Random House, 1993. Seidman served as FDIC chair from 1985 to 1991. This is a colorful and entertaining memoir of a turbulent period. Sprague, Irvine H. Bailout: An Insider’s Account of Bank Failures and Rescues. Washington, D.C.: Beard Books, 2000. A former chair and director of the FDIC (1972-1985) describes a number of bank bailouts and failures, beginning with Commonwealth in 1972. Trescott, Paul B. Financing American Enterprise: The Story of Commercial Banking. New York: Harper & Row, 1963. A nontechnical narrative that identifies the major steps in depositor protection from the 1820’s.
Bank failures
Banking
Currency
Deregulation of financial institutions
Farm Credit Administration
Financial crisis of 2008
New Deal programs
Panic of 1907
Savings and loan associations