Bank Insurance Fund


Bank Insurance Fund (BIF)

A unit of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) that provides deposit insurance for banks excluding thrifts.

Bank Insurance Fund

Also called the BIF. A pool of money created in 1989 by the FDIC to insure deposits made by banks that are members of the Federal Reserve System. The BIF was created to separate bank insurance money from thrift insurance money (which came from the Savings Association Insurance Fund). While this was likely beneficial for a time because of the savings and loan crisis, it created a perverse incentive for banks and thrifts to reclassify themselves as the other (i.e. a bank to a thrift or a thrift to a bank), depending on which fund had lower fees at a given time. This led to the passage of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act of 2005, which abolished the Savings Association Insurance Fund and the BIF and created a single Deposit Insurance Fund.

Bank Insurance Fund

The federal fund administered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which insures the deposits of individuals who invest at banks that are members of the Federal Reserve System. This includes all national banks and state banks that choose to join the Fed. The fund was created in 1989 in order to separate the insurance funds for commercial banks from those that insure thrift institutions.

Bank Insurance Fund

The new name of the former fund of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).The FDIC is still alive and kicking,only the fund has changed names.