Bank Branches › Closed and merged banks
What happened to my old bank?
Type the name on the passbook, the lien or the old statement. Each bank's page follows it merger by merger to the bank that holds its accounts and loans today, and says who to ask about a lien, an old account or a safe deposit box.
Most vanished banks didn't fail
When a bank's name disappears, people assume it went under. Usually it didn't. Of 23,627 bank charters that ended since 1970, 18,884 merged into another bank and 4,145 failed or were merged with federal help. That matters, because a merged bank's accounts, loans and liens went somewhere: 22,075 of these banks can be followed to a bank that is open today.
Counted by the FDIC's own closing code for each certificate. "Failed" includes failures where another bank took over the deposits, and assisted mergers. 22 banks with no end date on record are not drawn.
The chain can be long
A lien from the 1980s may name a bank five mergers back. The longest chain in the record starts at First Federal Savings and Loan Association of Pittsburg in Pittsburg, KS: 10 steps before it reaches U.S. Bank National Association. A directory that stops at the first buyer leaves you holding the name of another bank that no longer exists.
What you came to sort out
A lien from a bank that's gone
A paid-off mortgage, HELOC or car loan still shows the old bank. Who can sign the release depends on whether the bank merged or failed.
An old passbook or CD
What the paper does and doesn't prove, who to ask, and where the money goes when nobody asks for years.
A safe deposit box
Where the box went with the branch, and what happens to boxes nobody paid for.
Unclaimed money
State programs, the FDIC's own search for failed banks, and the 18-month rule.
Closed and merged banks by state
By the state of each bank's main office when it ended.
What's in this record
Every FDIC-insured bank and savings institution that ended in about 1970 or later, 23,627 in all, plus the 4,208 open today, with 18,939 earlier names they used. Each has an FDIC certificate number. When a bank merges, its certificate ends and the FDIC records the certificate that took it over; this site follows that pointer until it reaches a bank that is open.
Checked against the FDIC: the FDIC separately lists a final successor for each ended bank. The chain walked here ends at that same bank for all but ten of the 23,627.
Not in it: credit unions, banks that closed before about 1970, and state banks that never had federal deposit insurance. Read Nov 15, 2026 from the FDIC BankFind Suite data.