Which banks are safe to maintain deposits?

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Trivia: Back in the days of wooden sailing ships, passengers used to wear gold chains hidden under their clothing to keep their wealth secure during the passage. Unfortunately though, if the ship capsized, all that gold sent them straight to the bottom ...
 
Move cash to a 100% treasury money market fund (such as in Vanguard), or hold treasury bills directly in TreasuryDirect.Gov. I think these are safer than FDIC insured banks because the event that the US government defaults on treasuries are much more remote than the failure of a bank. If multiple banks fail the FDIC may run out of dollars and may require Congressional action to print more. If a run on the US government occurs cash may not be any good anymore.
 
You guys are scarin' me. My money's in Wells Fargo. I think I'll inquire about Vanguard. Can I write checks against that type of account?
 
You can have a million insured at a bank under FDIC if you do the vesting correctly. Most people think $100K is the max, but its not true. No need to panic at least yet.
 
Can you expand on your comments wendyinoc?

"You can have a million insured at a bank under FDIC if you do the vesting correctly."

how about Investment brokerage firm like ML?
 
I have a different view, I am going to put my money into the one that is most likely to fail and thus be assured that the FDIC has funds to payout. You figure that the FDIC will run out of the money by the time the "safe" banks go under. It worked for people with their money in Bear Stearns.
 
"I am going to put my money into the one that is most likely to fail and thus be assured that the FDIC has funds to payout. You figure that the FDIC will run out of the money by the time the "safe" banks go under."

That is hilarious, mostly because it is so true. Theoretically, the FDIC can not run out of money; even if they run out of money. The FDIC is a branch of the federal reserve, and the fed can print as much as they want.
 
flmgrip, I asked a question, if you do not like it ignore it. Maybe it does not apply to you. I am not interested in flame wars. Good luck in your quest.
 
"It's most likely unwieldy and will take months to get money out of the FDIC if the bank folds. "

I do not have any personal experience with an account at a failed FDIC insured bank, but I have read that the FDIC makes good within days and even hours. From what I understand, the FDIC is in contact with a failing bank and gets everything in order before the anouncement so the FDIC is ready to transfer deposits or pay out deposits. Just what I have heard.
 
FYI

www.fdic.gov/about/learn/symbol/index.html

The FDIC receives no Congressional appropriations – it is funded by premiums that banks and thrift institutions pay for deposit insurance coverage and from earnings on investments in U.S. Treasury securities. With an insurance fund totaling more than $49 billion, the FDIC insures more than $3 trillion of deposits in U.S. banks and thrifts – deposits in virtually every bank and thrift in the country.

(Got to get first dibs on the $49 billion)

To protect insured depositors, the FDIC responds immediately when a bank or thrift institution fails. Institutions generally are closed by their chartering authority – the state regulator, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, or the Office of Thrift Supervision. The FDIC has several options for resolving institution failures, but the one most used is to sell deposits and loans of the failed institution to another institution. Customers of the failed institution automatically become customers of the assuming institution. Most of the time, the transition is seamless from the customer's point of view.
 
I've had money at failed banks before (long time ago). The money is deposited to another bank the next day. No loss of interest whatsoever. It was a very smooth transition - I didn't have to do anything.
 
Two small banks in Missouri failed so far this year. If they both combined for a total of $3 Billion in insurance payouts we have much larger problems than I think we do.
 
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