Pennsylvania banking regulators closed Republic First Bank on the evening of Friday 26 April 2024 and transferred control to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which immediately arranged the sale of the bank's deposits and assets to Fulton Financial Corporation. The failure makes Republic First the first FDIC-insured bank to collapse in 2024, arriving more than a year after the wave of regional bank failures — Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank and First Republic — in the spring of 2023.
At the time of its closure, Republic First Bank held approximately $6 billion in assets. Fulton Bank, N.A., the banking subsidiary of Lancaster, Pennsylvania-based Fulton Financial Corporation, assumed substantially all deposits and purchased substantially all assets in the FDIC-facilitated transaction.
FDIC ESTIMATES $667 MILLION COST TO DEPOSIT INSURANCE FUND
The FDIC estimated that the failure of Republic First Bank would cost the Deposit Insurance Fund approximately $667 million. The estimated cost is subject to revision as the receivership progresses.
The fund had already incurred substantial drawdowns from the three large failures of 2023, prompting the FDIC to impose a special assessment on larger banks to recover the cost of protecting uninsured depositors at Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.
BACKGROUND TO THE FAILURE
Republic First had faced governance difficulties and had been unable to execute a capital raise to strengthen its balance sheet.
Fulton did not enter into any loss-sharing agreement with the FDIC in the transaction.