first vietnamese american bank closes

Some news out of Orange County... Little Saigon's First Vietnamese American Bank, which opened five years ago as the first U.S. bank with a core clientele of Vietnamese immigrants, was shut down by regulators last week: First Vietnamese American Bank Closes.

First Vietnamese American opened in May 2005 as a new twist on the Asian American banks that had thrived in Southern California's ethnic Chinese and Korean communities. But the bank struggled almost from the start, receiving a string of regulatory enforcement orders beginning in 2006.

"Good idea, bad management," said Hans Schroeder, a portfolio manager at Green Street Capital Management in San Francisco with expertise in community banks.

Rival Saigon National Bank, which opened in Little Saigon in November 2005, has had problems of its own, having repeatedly missed dividend payments to the U.S. Treasury on $1.2 million in bailout funds it received at the height of the financial crisis.

Sign of the times. The seizure of First Vietnamese American brought the number of failed banks nationwide this year to 143, the most since the recession year of 1992. Ouch. More here: First Vietnamese American Bank closes.