MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Banking system losses in the US keep mounting: 32 billion in fourth quarter

United States banks lost 32.1 billion US dollars in the last quarter of 2008 - even worse than the 26.2 billion originally reported, US federal regulators say.

The revised data by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) included higher charges for an accounting item known as goodwill impairment.

The FDIC said it was the industry's first quarterly loss in 18 years.

The FDIC also lowered the industry's net income for the whole of 2008 to 10.2 billion from 16.1 billion.

On Friday, the agency updated its earlier report for the October-December period.

The FDIC said it revised the data because of “substantially higher” charges for goodwill impairment.

Goodwill is an asset on a firm's balance sheets, which helps to determine of what it is worth beyond the tangible, including the added value from the potential for future success.

The FDIC did not provide the names of the institutions which accounted for the largest losses.

In the last quarter of 2007, the US banking industry posted a 575 million US dollars profit. Last month, the FDIC said there were 252 banks in trouble at the end of 2008 - a rise from 171 in the third quarter