The year just about to end hasn’t been a great one for US banks. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has had to participate in the closure of 157 banks in 2010, out of the roughly 7,800 banks and savings associations with deposits insured through the FDIC.

Few of the bank failures in 2010 have been front-page news, outside their immediate communities. If a New York- or Los Angeles-based bank were to fail, that would be one thing – the implications for economic confidence in general are clear.