Banks

The Florida debacle of banks (TIME, July 12) spread last week like slithering protoplasm into adjacent neighborhoods, even beyond the bounds of the state, into Georgia. There more than four score banks also failed during the week.

The interrelation of these banks, latest to fail, was intimate. They belonged to a chain of 120 banks, financed and supported by the Bankers' Trust Co. of Atlanta, Ga. (W. D. Manley, president; Paul J. Baker, treasurer). Part of its policy was to insure the deposits of allied institutions. Therefore when the Umatilla (Fla.) Bank discovered that some of its $441,500 deposits in the Bankers' Trust Co. were going to cover the closures of the Bank of Dania (TIME, July 12) and of others in similar predicament, the Umatilla officials applied for, and obtained, a receivership against the Bankers' Trust Co. Immediately the scores of banks too dependent upon the Bankers' Trust Co. had to close. The Umatilla Bank itself could not keep open.

The comptroller's office last week indicated the 12 greatest banks in the country. They are, with their resources and deposits, indicated in millions of dollars:

Res. Dep.

National City........... ....................................1,281 963

Chase National............. .................................931 813

Guaranty Trust ..............................................644 519

Bank of Commerce, N . Y .............................631 515

Continental and Commercial .........................601 498

Bankers' Trust ...............................................545 426

Equitable Trust ...............................................512 408

First Nat., Chicago .........................................462 380

Ill. Merchants' Trust, Chicago .....................454 381

Irving-Columbia Trust ................................446 345

Bank of Italy, San Francisco ..........................430 391

First National, Boston ....................................397 305

*On Sept. 28, 1925, this was the only bank in the U. S. with deposits of more than $500,000,000 (TIME, Nov. 2).