How to Make Sure Your Bank Is Safe
Oct 6th, 2008 | By Keith Fitz-Gerald | Category: Politics & EconomicsThese are worrying times. Not only for investors, but also for anyone with their savings in US banks. Already, some of the biggest names in banking have gone belly up. How do you know whether you bank is safe or not? Keith Fitz-Gerald in Money Morning says there are three steps you can take to make sure your bank is safe.
- Click over to Bankrate.com’s Safe & Sound ratings page. There you can plug in your bank’s name and see how it scores on the basis of 22 objective measures designed to gauge the capital adequacy, asset quality, profitability and liquidity of thousands of banks. If your bank doesn’t make the cut with a higher rating, then switch to one that does.
- Use the FDIC’s electronic deposit insurance estimator to see if your assets are covered in full. With the recent signing of the bailout legislation into law, the FDIC now covers accounts up to $250,000 at any one bank in any single account or $250,000 per co-owner for joint accounts. Traditional and Roth IRAs, SEPS and other retirement accounts on deposit at an FDIC-insured bank or savings institutions are insured up to $250,000 separately from any other deposits you may have at the same institution. But this is mainly deposit accounts and doesn’t include stocks, bonds, mutual funds or life insurance policies.
- Double-check your ownership. If a portion of your assets is uninsured, getting full coverage may just be a matter of changing ownership or spreading out your accounts to different banks. (But keep in mind, like most things the government doesn’t make this easy so that means more paperwork.) If you’ve got the big bucks, visit the Certificate of Deposit Account Registry Service, or CDARS, and learn how you can obtain full FDIC insurance on deposits up to $50 million – with a single interest rate on a single statement at a single bank. Ironically, a former U.S. Federal Reserve employee – someone who must have gotten “fed” up with the complicated FDIC insurance requirements and ownership restrictions – started this innovative service.
Source: Credit Crisis Safety Plays: Three Steps to Take to Make Sure Your Bank is Safe
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Keith Fitz-Gerald is a Contributing Editor to Money Morning, as well as Investment Director of the Money Map Report and editor of the New China Trader. He is also a seasoned market analyst known for his accuracy, perspective and insight. He is also a former professional trader and licensed CTA advising institutions and qualified individuals, and he specializes in non-directional trading.
