fdic_bank_failures
Retrieve historical FDIC-insured bank failures and assistance transactions. Filter by state, failure year, or certificate number, and sort by date, cost, or assets.
Instructions
Historical FDIC-insured bank failures & assistance transactions (keyless; api.fdic.gov/banks/failures). CERT links a failure back to fdic_search_institutions / fdic_institution_financials. Filters: state (2-letter → PSTALP — NOTE: /failures state field is PSTALP, NOT STALP), failYear (→FAILYR), cert (→CERT, the STABLE entity key). limit (≤1000), offset (≤100000), sortBy (FAILDATE/COST/QBFASSET/QBFDEP/NAME/FAILYR, def FAILDATE), sortOrder (def DESC). Returns { failures:[{ name, cert, failDate, failYear, city, state, resolutionType, resolutionFund, estimatedLossUSD, depositsUSD, assetsUSD, id }] }. NO name/city filter — FDIC /failures search param is IGNORED (returns the whole dataset); to find a specific bank's failure, resolve its CERT via fdic_search_institutions. HONESTY: totalAvailable is EXACT meta.total (stable across offset). failDate normalized from FDIC's M/D/YYYY to ISO YYYY-MM-DD (unrecognized → surfaced raw + disclosed, never nulled). COST/QBFDEP/QBFASSET are $thousands normalized to whole USD ×1000 (null-never-0 — genuine 0 = a no-loss assisted transaction stays 0; NEGATIVE COST = a net DIF recovery/gain, not a loss; absent → null). ONLY honest empty is meta.total:0/data:[] → complete:true/total:0; any other envelope (400 errors[]/404/non-JSON/missing meta or data) THROWS (never fake-empty). The point-in-time snapshot build time is disclosed. NOTE: FDIC keys on CERT, not SAM UEI/DUNS.
Input Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| cert | No | Filter by FDIC certificate number (the STABLE entity key; → CERT filter). Resolve a bank's CERT via fdic_search_institutions. | |
| limit | No | Rows per page, 1..1000, default 100. | |
| state | No | Filter by 2-letter US state code (uppercase; → PSTALP filter — the /failures state field is PSTALP, NOT STALP). e.g. 'CA'. | |
| offset | No | 0-based row offset for pagination, 0..100000, default 0. | |
| sortBy | No | Sort field (allowlisted enum; default FAILDATE = failure date). An unknown field is rejected before fetch. | |
| failYear | No | Filter by year of failure (→ FAILYR filter). 1934..current UTC year. e.g. 2023 → the 5 real 2023 failures (Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, First Republic Bank, Heartland Tri-State Bank, Citizens Bank). | |
| sortOrder | No | Sort direction, default DESC (most-recent failures first). |