Washington, November 23: Twenty two and still counting! Banks continue to fall like nine pins. Newport Beach based Downey Savings and Loan Association and Pomona based PFF Bank & Trust were the latest to join the ignominious list of banks that have failed this year.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation seized and sold the two victims of the current economic turmoil to Minneapolis based U.S. Bancorp. The latter acquired branches, deposits, and most of the assets of both the institutions through its subsidiary U.S Bank. US Bancorp will, however, not acquire assets or liabilities of their parent holding companies.

U.S Bank is the sixth-largest bank in the United States as of June 30, 2008. It is one of the few banks that have managed to avoid most of the wretchedness of the credit market cycle.

As of September 30, Downey’s assets were valued at $12.8 billion. It had deposits of $9.7 billion. On the other hand, PFF Bank had $3.7 billion in assets and $2.4 billion in deposits.

The shutting down of Downey and PFF highlights the huge impact that the slump in the housing market has had on such institutions. The F.D.I.C will incur close to $1.4 billion for Downey’s resolution while PFF would cost it another $700 million.

While this may just be the tip of the iceberg of the current recession, a hopeful Neil Katkov, senior vice president of Celent, a Boston-based financial research firm said, "The restructuring or consolidation of the U.S. banking industry has probably just begun. There’s a whole world of potential mergers and acquisitions that will continue to emerge like these one."

The data however does not present such a rosy picture. This year, 22 banks have failed. Compare this with 6 bank failures last year. 1993 holds the notorious record of most bank failures when 50 banks failed.