August 29, 2008

NEW YORK (AP) -- A Georgia bank, Integrity Bank of Alpharetta,
has become the 10th U.S. bank to fail so far this year.
Regions Bank of Birmingham, Alabama, is assuming all of
Integrity Bank's 974 million dollars in insured and uninsured
deposits in 23,000 accounts, and about 34.4 million of the bank's
1.1 billion dollars in assets.
Integrity's five branches in Atlanta will open Tuesday after
Labor Day as Regions Bank branches.
The remainder of Integrity's assets are being retained by the
FDIC. The FDIC said it estimates that Integrity's failure will cost
its deposit insurance fund up to 350 million dollars.
Integrity Bank, which opened for business in November of 2000,
specialized in real-estate lending in the Atlanta area with a
self-described "faith-based culture." While the housing market
was booming, Integrity Bank grew into a billion-dollar, publicly
traded company. When the real estate market started faltering, the
bank found itself in trouble.
The bank fired its chief executive last August and voluntarily
delisted from the Nasdaq Global Market in March of this year. The
Nasdaq had been threatening to delist the company for failing to
comply with reporting standards.
FDIC spokesman Rickey McCullough says the bank failed due to its
aggressive pursuit of construction loans, coupled with falling real
estate values and "inadequate risk management."

Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press