About

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is an independent government agency that has been protecting Americans’ savings for 75 years.  Created in 1933, the FDIC promotes public trust and confidence in the U.S. banking system by insuring deposits up to $250,000 – and certain retirement accounts up to $250,000 – per depositor, per insured bank or thrift.

With an insurance fund totaling more than $52.8 billion, the FDIC insures more than $4.3 trillion of deposits in 8,494 U.S. banks and thrifts – deposits in virtually every bank and thrift in the country. Throughout the FDIC’s 75-year history, no one has ever lost a penny of insured deposits as a result of a bank failure.

In addition to immediately responding to insured depositors when a bank fails, the FDIC monitors and addresses risks to the Deposit Insurance Fund, and directly supervises and examines more than 5,200 institutions that are not members of the Federal Reserve System. 

Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the agency receives no congressional appropriations.  It is funded by premiums that banks and thrifts pay for deposit insurance coverage and from earnings on investments in U.S. Treasury securities.

The FDIC – with a staff of more than 4,500 employees nationwide – is managed by a five-person Board of Directors, all of whom are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, with no more than three being from the same political party.  Sheila C. Bair heads this board as the 19th Chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

Chairman Bair and the FDIC officially launched the agency’s 75th anniversary on June 16, 2008.  The Corporation is celebrating this milestone with a campaign to promote awareness of deposit insurance and coverage limits, as well as to reinforce its ongoing commitment to consumers through an initiative to enhance financial literacy and improve consumer savings.

 Historical Timeline

• On June 16, 1933, at the height of the Great Depression and with more than 4,000 bank failures already that year, President Roosevelt signs the Banking Act of 1933 establishing the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation as a temporary agency to raise the confidence of the U.S. public in the banking system. 

• FDIC deposit insurance goes into effect on January 1, 1934. The deposit insurance level is $2,500. Only nine banks fail during the first year that the FDIC begins insuring banks.

• On July 1, 1934, FDIC deposit insurance coverage is increased to $5,000.

• The Banking Act of 1935 provides for permanent deposit insurance and maintains it at the $5,000 level.

• In 1950, deposit insurance coverage increases to $10,000.

• 1962 marks the first full year with no bank failure since the FDIC’s creation – a milestone not repeated again until 2005 and 2006.

• The Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980 passes Congress – which is the most sweeping banking reform package enacted since the Banking Act of 1933.

• The deposit insurance limit jumps to $15,000 in 1966; to $20,000 in 1969; to $40,000 in 1974; and to $100,000 in 1980.

• Forty-eight insured banks, with $7 billion in assets, fail in 1983.  After 50 years, the FDIC still takes in more bank premiums than it loses through failures. 

• In 1984, the FDIC – for the first time – spends more on resolving failures than it receives in premiums, with 79 insured bank failures that year.

• In 1989, the largest number of bank failures – 206 – occur in FDIC history.  Two-thirds of the banks are in Texas.  
• President George H.W. Bush signs the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989. This act is the beginning of statutory attempts to re-regulate the banking and saving and loans industries.
• The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Improvement Act (FDICIA) of 1991 gives the FDIC the authority to borrow $30 billion from the Treasury to help replenish the Bank Insurance Fund.  It also requires the FDIC to apply risk-based premiums by January 1, 1994, and to close banks in the least-costly manner to the insurance fund.
• The Riegle-Neal Interstate Banking and Branching Act of 1994 permits bank holding companies to acquire banks in any state, interstate branching among banks, and foreign banks to branch to the same extent as U.S. banks.
• The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 repeals the last provisions of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 – which separated commercial and investment banking.  
• June 25, 2004 to February 2, 2007, marks the longest period in the FDIC’s history without a single bank failure.
• On February 8, 2006, President George W. Bush signs the Federal Deposit Insurance Reform Act of 2005 into law, providing for – among other things – an increase in insurance coverage to $250,000 for certain retirement accounts.
•  The FDIC launches its 75th anniversary celebration on June 16, 2008 – exactly three-quarters of a century after it was created.
• On October 3, 2008, President George W. Bush signs the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act into law, authorizing a temporary increase in FDIC deposit insurance limit to $250,000 until December 31, 2009.

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