Customers who had money in The Community's Bank in Bridgeport should receive their insured deposits back this week after the bank failed and was put into receivership. It's the first bank failure in Connecticut in more than a decade.
The action against The Community's Bank was announced late Friday, as state banking regulators and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation stepped in to stem operating losses resulting from real estate loans gone bad. The bank had about $25 million in deposits which will be returned to just over a thousand customers. Deposits up to $250,000 are fully covered by the FDIC.
It was the state's only minority owned bank, which was founded in 2001 by financier Peter Hurst, and had most of its business concentrated in urban commercial lending. Though it began with three former Fleet Bank branches, last week at the time of closure it had just one, in Bridgeport.
The FDIC says while it had to shut off access to depositors accounts over the weekend, all customers should receive a check covering their insured balances this week. The last bank to be closed in the state was the Connecticut Bank of Commerce back in 2002.