Federal regulators of Colorado and North Carolina have shut a bank each in the respective states, bringing the total number of banks closed in 2009 thus far to 23 - a figure dreadfully close to that of 25 bank closures in all in the year 2008! Both the recently-shut banks have been taken over by the FDIC - Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

The two banks that faced closure included Colorados' New Frontier Bank in Greeley, North Carolina's Cape Fear Bank in Wilmington. According to the FDIC, the two bank closures together will bring an $801-million reduction in the federal deposit insurance fund.

While New Frontier, the second Colorado bank to be shut down, had assets worth $2 billion and deposits of $1.5 billion; Cape Fear, the first North Carolina bank to face closure in 16 years, had $492 in assets and $403 million in deposits.

The FDIC has given the depositors of New Frontier a one-month period to transfer accounts, and has hired San Francisco's Bank of the West to run the closed bank's main office and two branches. With regard to Cape Fear, the FDIC has asked South Carolina's First Federal Savings and Loan Association in Charleston to assume the bank's assets and eight branches, to be opened on April 13 as First Federal offices.