St. Paul, Minn. — The assets of Prosperan Bank in Oakdale were
taken over by North Dakota-based Alerus Financial late last week, but
customers were able to do business as usual Monday.
Minnesota is home to about 420 banks and since the start of the credit
crunch, seven have failed. That might not sound like very many, but
before this latest batch of failures, the last state bank failure we
had was in the year 2000, nearly 10 years ago.
Kevin Murphy, Minnesota's deputy commerce commissioner, said economic
conditions have taken their toll on the state's banks. Many have
suffered losses tied to commercial real estate and residential
development loans.
Murphy said most of the state's banks are weathering those stresses and
are actually in pretty good shape, but about 1 out of 5 banks and
credit unions are on a "watch list," due to rising loan losses.
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