http://www.businessweek.com/ap/finan.../D8TLABQG2.htm
WASHINGTON The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has proposed rule changes on determining which bank depositors are eligible for up to $100,000 per person in FDIC insurance if a bank fails.
The FDIC's proposed rules would apply to 159 institutions with $2 billion or more in U.S. deposits, more than 250,000 deposit accounts or total assets of more than $20 billion.
The FDIC began working on the rule changes before the start of recent widespread banking industry turmoil that was triggered by a mortgage meltdown.
If a bank goes under, it is required to provide account data in a standardized format to the FDIC so who is eligible for insurance can be decided.
Since many bank customers have multiple accounts under different names, i.e., maiden name versus spouse's name or a variation on a name like Robert, eligibility can be difficult to determine, FDIC spokesman David Barr said in an e-mail. The difficulty is compounded by the fact that bank deposits don't always require customers to give a Social Security identification number.
What prompted changing the rules was industrywide consolidation of many regional banks into larger national players earlier this decade, some with more than $1 trillion in assets, Barr said.



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