• County Bank of Merced, CA. Westamerica Bank (NASDAQ: WABC) will assume all of the deposits of County which had 39 offices, $1.7 billion in assets and $1.3 billion in deposits. This deal will cost the FDIC $135 million.
• Alliance Bank of Culver City, CA. California Bank & Trust, a subsidiary of Zions Bancorp (NASDAQ: ZION) will assume all the deposits of Alliance which had $1.14 billion in assets and $951 million in deposits -- costing the FDIC $206 million.
• FirstBank Financial Services of McDonough, GA. Regions Financial (NYSE: RF) will assume the deposits of FirstBank which had assets of $337 million and $279 million in deposits -- costing the FDIC $111 million.

In 2008, 25 banks closed and at the current rate it would not surprise me if 60 to 70 banks closed this year. Since the FDIC has about $34.6 billion at the end of last September in its deposit insurance fund, it will probably need to increase that balance -- particularly if 2009's failed banks end up being far larger than the ones that have failed so far. If the next 60 banks to fail cost $150 million each, the total $9 billion outlay will deplete the FDIC deposit insurance fund to somewhere less than $25 billion.

And the FDIC has already estimated that between 2009 and 2013, its insurance fund will take $40 billion in hits. Needless to say, one big FDIC-assisted failure could wipe out the fund entirely. And this means that the FDIC will need more money. It could get that through increased insurance charges top banks or from some financing arrangement with the Treasury.

No doubt, it will need all the money it can get in the next few years.

Peter Cohan is president of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College. His eighth book is You Can't Order Change: Lessons from Jim McNerney's Turnaround at Boeing. He has no financial interest in the securities mentioned.