Another month, another bank collapse. On Friday, Heartland Tri-State Bank was closed by the Kansas Office of the State Bank Commissioner.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation was named the receiver and Dream First Bank of Syracuse, Kansas assumed all deposit accounts and substantially all the assets.
Heartland Tri-State Bank is the first community bank in the nation to fail in 2023. It is a small bank, with some $139 million in assets in the first quarter. The deposits are now assets of Dream First Bank.
Elkhart Financial Corporation of Elkhart, Kansas, owned all shares of Heartland Tri-State Bank stock before FDIC took the bank. The holding company was not included in the closing of the bank or the resulting receivership.
The Kansas bank failure adds to other major financial institutions this year that have failed, and at least one bank that voluntarily liquidated when caught up in the cryptocurrency collapse related to the FTX exchange bankruptcy.
First Republic, Silicon Valley Bank, and Signature Bank collapsed in the first few months of 2023. First Republic was acquired by JPMorgan in May after efforts to rescue the bank were unsuccessful.
Silvergate Capital folded operations at its bank, which catered to crypto traders.
PacWest, a sixth bank, late week merged with Banc of California, in what appears to be an attempt to avoid collapse. For years PacWest had been on a buying spree, swallowing up smaller financial institutions. At the time it was folded into Banc of California, it was said to have over $41 billion in assets
No banks failed last year, according to FDIC, but in 2019 and 2020, four banks failed in each of those years. This year, the number now stands at six, including mergers under duress and voluntary closures.
