US FDIC presses banks to fix 'inaccurate' statements as new fee looms
By Pete Schroeder and Niket Nishant
(Reuters) -The U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) on Monday told banks to fix financial statements that «incorrectly» reduced uninsured deposits, restatements that preceded a proposed special fee tied to the size of those deposits.
The warning and revisions came as banks have complained about a fee the FDIC plans to impose mainly on large firms to recover its losses from the failures of Silicon Valley Bank and others. The banks could owe billions of dollars.
That special fee, which the FDIC proposed in May, would be assessed based on their uninsured deposits at the end of 2022.
The regulator said some banks were «not reporting estimated uninsured deposits in accordance with the instructions.» It did not name any banks.
The FDIC was referring to downward revisions by banks since the end of 2022 to their amounts of depositors' uninsured money.
A July 6 report by S&P Global (NYSE:SPGI) noted 55 banks restated their fourth-quarter uninsured deposits in FDIC reports, more than twice the norm.
Specifically, the FDIC reminded banks they must report uninsured deposits backed by pledged assets as well as uninsured deposits held at their own subsidiaries.
«If your institution incorrectly reduced the amount of reported uninsured deposits, for example, to reflect collateralization of deposits by pledged assets or by excluding intercompany deposit balances of subsidiaries, those reports are inaccurate,» the regulator said
In a comment letter on July 17, Zions Bancorporation (NASDAQ:ZION) Chief Financial Officer Paul Burdiss critiqued the FDIC's approach.
Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) revised its uninsured deposits reported to the FDIC downward in May by 13.8% to $783.92 billion to
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