Which bank is the safest?

[Bernadette]

The FDIC spent about 10 percent of its resources to bail out IndyMac. If bank collapses can be contained, then FDIC guarantees will hold. But if there's a series of cascading failures at any point, the FDIC itself will have to be bailed out.

I like the Bankrate evaluation system. Don't count on the FDIC. Count on a bank that does business sensibly. Wells Fargo does seem relatively sound.

[Bernadette]

From CNBC:

"Large U.S. Bank Collapse Ahead -- Ex IMF Economist.

The worst of the global financial crisis is yet to come and a large U.S. bank will fail in the next few months as the world's biggest economy hits further troubles, former IMF chief economist Kenneth Rogoff said on Tuesday.

"The U.S. is not out of the woods. I think the financial crisis is at the halfway point, perhaps. I would even go further to say 'the worst is to come'," he told a financial conference.

"We're not just going to see mid-sized banks go under in the next few months, we're going to see a whopper, we're going to see a big one, one of the big investment banks or big banks," said Rogoff, who is an economics professor at Harvard University and was the International Monetary Fund's chief economist from 2001 to 2004.

[*bbj*]

The other thing you can do is keep up with the health of the banks you're involved with. I'm with ShoreBank, and even now they remain profitable and liquid. They're also green focused and community oriented (and not just in their advertising). Right now they rate is 3.5%, and that beats ING.

[cashing_in]

Originally Posted by Xin Lu

Yeah, I also think bigger institutions are generally safer, but currently it is hard to tell. The best thing to do is like what many people have already said, just make sure your accounts are insured. Personally I don't have that much cash in banks. I keep most of my cash in a money market at Vanguard, which is not FDIC insured. Oddly enough I trust vanguard more than banks now because Vanguard is an investment firm and they do not make mortgage loans. They also told customers that they did not invest in CDOs.

Hi, I am new here and I am sure would be able to share ideas and Information on the market, finance, accounting and anything under the Sun.

I do agree with the idea of investing through the investment firms rather than keeping the money stagnant in bank.

Cheers

[lcituk]

Like most people, I'm hoping that recent events served the purpose of taking the economy to the woodshed, and that we returned with a lesson learned. A lot of costly mistakes were made and a lot of investors and depositors should now be looking around with a new awareness of something called "sociably-responsible banking." As it turns out, there really are banks out there that are specifically dedicated to being of service to localities & communities – and especially to underserved areas that could make good use of development money. And, they're doing it very successfully.
Thankfully, I dodged the bullet, and in my new awareness I started looking around for a bank that could convince me that it was socially responsible. ShoreBank is one of the banks I've been reading about and I'm pleased to see they've got the same online-banking tools and rates that my current bank has, I'm in the process of switching my savings over to their High Yield Savings Account (Currently 3.50% APR). Take a look: https://www.sbk.com/bins/site/templa...dex=1&NC=1161X)