Integrity Bank 10th US bank to fail this year

Integrity Bank of Alpharetta, has become the 10th U.S. bank to fail so far this year. Regions Bank of Birmingham, Alabama, will assume all of Integrity Bank's 974 million dollars in insured and uninsured deposits. Region's will also assume about 34-and a half million of the bank's 1.1 billion dollars in assets. The remainder of its assets will be retained by the FDIC. It’s estimated Integrity's failure will cost the FDIC’s deposit insurance fund up to 350 million dollars. A spokesman for the FDIC says the bank failed due to its aggressive pursuit of construction loans, falling real estate values and "inadequate risk management." Integrity's five metro-Atlanta branches will open after Labor Day as Regions Bank branches.

Integrity Bank, which opened for business in November of 2000, specialized in real-estate lending in the Atlanta area with a self-described "faith-based culture." While the housing market was booming, Integrity Bank grew into a billion-dollar, publicly traded company. When the real estate market started faltering, the bank found itself in trouble. The bank fired its chief executive last August and voluntarily delisted from the Nasdaq Global Market in March of this year. The Nasdaq had been threatening to delist the company for failing to comply with reporting standards. FDIC spokesman Rickey McCullough says the bank failed due to its aggressive pursuit of construction loans, coupled with falling real estate values and "inadequate risk management."