<p>FYI</p>
<p><a href="http://www.fdic.gov/about/learn/symbol/index.html">www.fdic.gov/about/learn/symbol/index.html</a></p>
<p>The FDIC receives no Congressional appropriations – it is funded by premiums that banks and thrift institutions pay for deposit insurance coverage and from earnings on investments in U.S. Treasury securities. With an insurance fund totaling more than $49 billion, the FDIC insures more than $3 trillion of deposits in U.S. banks and thrifts – deposits in virtually every bank and thrift in the country.</p>
<p>(Got to get first dibs on the $49 billion)</p>
<p>To protect insured depositors, the FDIC responds immediately when a bank or thrift institution fails. Institutions generally are closed by their chartering authority – the state regulator, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, or the Office of Thrift Supervision. The FDIC has several options for resolving institution failures, but the one most used is to sell deposits and loans of the failed institution to another institution. Customers of the failed institution automatically become customers of the assuming institution. Most of the time, the transition is seamless from the customer's point of view. </p>