
The vast majority of commercial banks that have ever operated in the U.S. have disappeared. Since its all-time high of 30,456 in 1921, the bank population had declined to only 4,377 at the end of 2020, a decline of about 86%. Even since 1934, after the 1933 bank holiday closed thousands of banks and the newly established Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) stabilized the banking system, the bank population has declined by 71%, or 10,973 institutions.