Eight more banks failed last week, bringing the 2010 total to 50. Three of the failures were in Florida, and two were in California. Massachusetts, Michigan and Washington had one bank failure each.

In Florida, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation took over Riverside National Bank, First Federal Bank of North Florida and AmericanFirst Bank. TD Bank Financial Group a division of Canadian company TD Bank (TD) took the deposits and nearly all the assets of each. Riverside National had $3.4 billion in assets, with First Federal at $393.3 million and AmericanFirst at $90.5 million.

The bank failure rate slowed a bit last week, but the tally remains alarming. Two banks in Georgia and one in Florida hit the skids, bringing the 2010 total to 40.

The victims this time around were McIntosh Commercial Bank in Carrollton, Georgia, Unity National Bank in Cartersville, Georgia, and West Bank of Key West, Florida. Together the three bank failures are expected to cost the FDIC insurance fund approximately $213.6 million.

During the 2003 -- 06 boom years, three agencies, The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the Office of Thrift Supervision, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency gave out millions of dollars in bonuses to regulators of these agencies.

The bonuses were supposedly given out for "superior" performance. Records show that at least $19 million in bonuses was awarded.

Three more banks failed last week, bringing 2010's total to 25. Already, this year's bank failures have matched the 2008 full-year total and exceeded the 2007 amount by a factor of greater than eight. The three regional banks that failed last week were in Florida, Illinois and Maryland, with close to a billion dollars in aggregate assets. According to the FDIC, the pace of bank failures could be set to accelerate in the next few months.

Sun American Bank, in Boca Raton, was taken over by the FDIC, with First-Citizens Bank & Trust, based in Raleigh, N.C., assuming the Florida banks assets and almost all of its deposits. Sun American had assets of $535.7 million and $443.5 million in deposits. Since July, First-Citizens has acquired the assets of four failed banks, the others being First Regional Bank of Los Angeles, Venture Ban (Lacey, Wash.) and Temecula Valley Bank (Temecula, Calif.).

Imagine that you go to withdraw funds from your checking account, only to find that you must give your bank seven days prior notice of the action. Does that sound outlandish? This regulatory fine print has been made all too real for customers of Citibank (C).

In an informational snafu that got out of hand, Citibank notified its customers that it has the right, or the responsibility, to delay customers from retrieving their own money in certain rare instances. The misstep occurred when Citibank included this revelation on the statements of its customers nationwide.

Not even two months into 2010, the number of banks closed this year has already reached 20, not far behind the full-year result of 25 in 2008 and ahead of the three in 2007. On Friday, four banks were shut down by regulators, carrying forward the momentum from 2009's 140 bank failures. In only one week, the number of bank failures this year spiked 25%.

La Jolla Bank FSB in California was taken over by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. It had 10 branches, $3.6 billion in assets and $2.8 billion in deposits. Its deposits and assets were taken over by OneWest Bank in Pasadena in a deal that is expected to cost the insurance fund $882.3 million. OneWest and the FDIC will share the losses on failed bank loans and other assets of approximately $3.3 billion.

The FDIC said this week that it expects distressed loans tied to mortgages and commercial real estate failures to result in many more bank failures this year. Last year 140 U.S. banks failed, the highest annual level since 1992. The FDIC has said the total bill for bank failures for the period of 2009 through 2013 could reach $100 billion.

Five more banks were seized by regulators on Friday, bringing this year's total to nine. The five failed banks are:

After seeing the number of bank failures tick up to 140 last year, there's some slight comfort in seeing the annual total only reach four. The feeling of relief disappears, of course, when you realize that we're only two weeks into 2010. The effects of the late 2008 financial crisis are still with us, as three small banks learned this week -- in Illinois, Minnesota and Utah. As expected, the 2009 trend continues. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's takeover of the banks follows the closure of the much larger Horizon Bank in Bellingham, Wash., the week before.

The bank bust tally is up to 131. Republic Federal Bank was the most recent to be shut down by regulators, which happened on Friday, making it the 13th in Florida to fall.

Boca Raton-based 1st United Bank (FUBC) has agreed to pick up its $352.7 million in deposits and $267.1 million of its $433 million in assets. The FDIC and 1st United are sharing $210.4 million in loans and other assets -- the stuff left over will be held by the FDIC until it is sold. According to the FDIC, this failure will cost the deposit insurance fund $122.6 million.

"The party is over. Never again." These are the words of Speaker Nancy Pelosi regarding the bill to regulate financial markets that passed the House of Representatives on 223 to 203 vote.

In broad terms, these are the provisions of the House bill:

• Large financial companies would be hit with billions of dollars in fees and would see new restrictions on their operations.
• The Federal Reserve's powers to write consumer-protection laws would be stripped.