Even bank failures sometimes have scheduling conflicts.
LibertyPointe Bank in New York was shut down by the state's Banking Department Thursday, even though bank takeovers typically occur on Fridays.
Regulators decided on a rare Thursday seizure because a Friday evening closure would have conflicted with the Jewish Sabbath.
The $210 million-asset bank's staff and customer base are largely Orthodox Jews, who observe a day of rest from sundown on Friday until sundown on Saturday.
In an interview Friday, David Barr, a spokesman for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which oversees bank failures and resolutions, said that although most bank failures occur on Fridays, the agency is flexible.
"Nothing is set in stone, we can and have had other banks fail on every other day of the week," Barr said. "We ask the employees of the bank to work alongside us to help the bank transition over.
"We are sensitive to religious beliefs," he continued, "so the decision was made to be closed on Thursday."
The last bank taken over on a day other than Friday was the $13 billion-asset BankUnited in Coral Gables, Fla., which failed on Thursday, May 21, 2009. That seizure was scheduled around the Memorial Day holiday weekend.
Of the nearly 200 banks that have failed since 2007, four occurred on days other than Friday, Barr said.
