A private FDIC?

The Certificate of Deposit Account Registry Service, or CDARS, is a way to conveniently spread bank accounts across multiple banks. CDARS, run by privately held Promontory Interfinancial Network, offers its customers up to $50 million of deposit insurance, or exactly 500 times single account limit mandated by the FDIC. Promontory does this by arranging to distribute client funds nationwide in $100K increments to over 2,300 banks. Promontory is nothing if not well connected: while founders Mark Jacobsen previously served as Chief of Staff at the FDIC, co-founders Alan Blinder was Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve and Eugene Ludwig was Comptroller of the Currency, several former members of the FDIC currently serve on Promotory's board.

Not surprisingly, some folks are openly critical of Promotory, some going so far as to state "It undermines a lot of the safeguards around the FDIC deposit fund."
posted on Sep 26, 2008 - View this thread

Washington Mutual seized by FDIC, sold to JP Morgan.
posted on Sep 25, 2008 - View this thread

Worried about bank failures? First step: check if your bank is insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). If so, then your first $100K is insured against loss so no worries.

Got more than $100K? Well then, you'd better speak with EDIE.
posted on Jul 14, 2008 - View this thread

The FDIC has taken control of IndyMac Bank This is being described as the second largest bank failure in US history. If you are a current customer with funds on deposit, here's what you need to do.
posted on Jul 11, 2008 - View this thread

What's the link between:
1) the quickly-growing number of American homeowners becoming unable to pay their mortgages after their ARM's reset (a trend nicknamed "ARMageddon" -- applicable in the UK too), which is translating into soaring foreclosure rates, and in turn forcing at least 60 US semi-shady mortgage brokers to go belly-up in the past year (i.e. the "subprime meltdown"), and...
2) the recent implosion and impending financial bailout -- which may become the biggest since the Long Term Capital Management fiasco of 1998 -- of two Bear Stearns hedge funds which dealt in mortgage securities? [more inside]
posted on Jul 11, 2007 - View this thread