by Michael Snyder, The Economic Collapse Blog:

It appears that the people running our system have decided that it is time for a wave of consolidation in the banking industry.  A key program that was keeping U.S. banks afloat was allowed to expire last month, and everyone knew what that would mean.  On Friday, the FDIC quietly announced that Republic Bank had been seized and a sale to Fulton Bank had already been arranged.  Have you noticed that they often try to announce bad news like this on Friday?  By the time news of the failure of Republic Bank broke, many people had already started their weekends.  And the FDIC probably assumes that most people will have forgotten all about this by the time Monday morning rolls around.  But this was a big deal, and it is inevitable that more dominoes will soon start to fall.