How safe is your bank? Let’s find out
By Ajita Jha
In times of such economic instability, you may have come across this thought whether your deposits are lying safe in the bank account. This pandemic certainly has forced you to question things that otherwise would never have crossed your mind. You must be more concerned about your financial future than ever. However, to figure out if your funds are safe in the local bank, you can pay heed to certain signs that can give you the idea of whether your bank is in trouble. Your bank might begin closing several branches, reducing the number of staff, put end to incentives, and implement acute increases in fees, these signs imply that the bank is going through a difficult phase and looking for ways to preserve cash.
Before making the switch from one bank to another, you can also look for signs such as decreasing deposits of the current year, delayed financial reports including earnings releases, it may indicate that the bank is grappling with a changing valuation. You can go through the performance report of your bank online to compare its capital ratio with other banks and further can check its ratings on a reliable website for more clarity.
Although banks make promises to instantly give back all your money upon request, in reality, they do not keep sufficient cash to pay every costumer at once since they lend the money to the customers. However, banks protect your funds regardless, and you can always check with due diligence if your money is lying safe in the bank.
Things to be considered to ascertain Bank’s Safety
To ensure your funds are lying safe at your chosen bank or credit union, you can take an instant action in the number of ways as mentioned under:
Insurance Coverage: before choosing the bank for making deposits, make sure it is ensured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) or credit unions that are ensured by the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA). However, not all banks are insured by governmental entities which does not always mean that they cannot be trusted. But for greater safety, do prefer ensured bank because if all your money is properly and fully insured, you will have nothing to worry about.
Multiple Banks: in most of the banks, the amount up to $250,000 are insured for every person, every account, and every entity. If you have more funds, deposit them at another bank or put them into certificates of deposit. Through this, you do not solely depend upon one bank for all your deposits and if one bank goes through financial distress, all your money won’t be lost.
Stay aware: always pay extra attention to any bank-related news. Take proactive action if you come across news that concerns your bank especially with regards to financial distress.
Bank Ratings: the struggling bank’s list is usually kept confidential by the FDIC, but you can always gain access to the actual performance of the bank through
BankQuality. On this online platform, you can easily find the genuine Ratings and Reviews of the Bank you might be interested in, and based on the information provided, can take your financial decision.
More about Bank Ratings
To begin with a smooth financial journey, you can start by neglecting weak banks to avoid bank failures. To identify which are the banks to be overlooked, you can browse through BankQuality and see the ratings and reviews of banks all around the world.
Furthermore, the FDIC has a long list of problem banks. Problem banks are analyzed in terms of loss amounts or outstanding loans and payback, its overall asset, the amount of loan the bank has charged off due to nonpayment, net interest margins, and various other factors that disclose a bank’s financial stability and health.
What happens if the bank continues to be on the problem bank’s list?
Although, in the last decade there have been many key banking industry changes, that have reduced the number of problem banks on the FDIC list from 900 to less than 100 in 2018. However, if banks still continue to appear in the problem bank’s list, the FDIC comes in and plays its part. It takes control of the bank and sells it to the banks that are more financially stronger, feasible, or liquidates the bank’s refunds and assets all of the bank customers’ deposits.
Conclusion
If you take the aforementioned factors into consideration, then no matter how uncertain or tricky the situation may appear, your bank is always the safest place for your funds or deposits. Banks always keep systems in place to keep the funds in your bank account protected to ensure smooth operations of your finances and money management. Hence, do not become panic or impulsively take out money from your bank account due to security reasons, it will only deplete bank’s cash reserves.
To know more on Bank Safety, check out these blogs!
