Beginning in the 1980s, bank failures increased dramatically and the growth rate of bank lending underwent a striking decline. From 1985 through 1992, commercial bank failures averaged over 160 per year, a rate unseen since the Great Depression, while aggregate commercial and industrial (C&I) lending by banks decreased from $577.3 billion to $536.4 billion. The increased failure rate renewed interest in failure prediction models, in how failure rates affect bank structure, and in the impact of failure resolution costs on the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) insurance fund and taxpayers.
1 The dramatic decline in bank lending rates prompted research on possible causes, which included the 1990-1991 recession, the implementation of the Basle risk-based capital standards, the impact of increased loan losses on capital, increasingly stringent bank examinations, and increased competitiveness in the banking industry.
2