Episode Details

This report is crazy! Pulaksi Savings Bank failed in January of 2025. The FDIC Office of Inspector General (OIG) complete an in-depth review of the bank’s failure, which was completed in March 2026. Initially, when the bank was closed by the FDIC, they stated that fraud was suspected. The newly released OIG report blamed the failure on ‘key employees’ and $20+ million in liabilities NOT listed in the bank’s financials, which caused the bank to be undercapitalized. Here is the problem, the individual serving as the CEO was also serving as the CFO, CCO, and chief cook and bottle washer! The CEO was responsible for financials, call reports, working with customers, etc. The OIG stated the responsibilities and activities of the CEO were far and beyond outside the normal scope of responsibilities of a typical CEO. They stated the CEO was critical to day-to-day operations and had major influence within the bank, and yet failed to name the CEO as a ‘dominant individual’? We are left with many, many questions at the end of this report. Why did the CEO have a leave of absence in 2023? How long was this absence? Who were the other ‘key employees’? The bank had a seven-year history of MOUs and MRBAs, why were they not shut down sooner? Why was $20+ million in liabilities not included in the bank’s core system or financials? The failure caused a loss to the FDIC fund of $28 million. This sounds like fraud, so why has no one been charged?  Links to the FDIC OIG summary announcement and the OIG In-depth Review of Pulaski Savings Bank are included below.

Link: https://www.fdicoig.gov/news/summary-announcements/depth-review-pulaski-savings-bank

Link: https://www.fdicoig.gov/sites/default/files/reports/2026-03/EVAL-26-01%20In-Depth%20Review%20of%20Pulaski%20Savings%20Bank.pdf