Washington Mutual has become the largest bank in United States history to fail and be seized by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. This move was not necessarily a surprise as many analysts have been predicting WaMu’s demise for a while now. The sheer size of this failure is staggering – $308 Billion in assets.

JP Morgan had to step in and buy the bank’s assets for $1.7 Billion to help keep the FDIC from depleting its own reserves. I’m sure this will not be the last bank failure, but hopefully it will remain the largest.

[tags]washington mutual, jp morgan, shaun carter, bank failure, economy, banking, fdic, federal reserve, wamu[/tags]