US regulators closed a small Florida bank on Friday, bringing the total in 2011 to 40, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said. The Office of Thrift Supervision closed the Coastal Bank of Cocoa Beach, Florida, and appointed the FDIC as the receiver. The Premier America Bank, National Association, in Miami agreed to acquire Coastal Bank's two branches.
As of March 31, Coastal Bank had about $129.4 million in total assets and $123.9 million in total deposits. The closure of the bank will cost the FDIC's deposit insurance fund about $13.4 million. Its two branches will reopen on Monday as branches of the Florida Community Bank, a unit of Premier American Bank. In 2010, 157 banks failed following 140 failures in 2009. The bulk of the failures have increasingly been smaller institutions with less than $1 billion in assets as large banks have recovered more quickly from the 2007-2009 financial crisis.