Inside the FDIC. Bovenzi John F.

IndyMac's government-issued checks, which they ultimately did.

      A more legitimate concern was that some IndyMac depositors might want to get all of their uninsured money back and might try to write personal checks for amounts above what was insured. To alleviate this concern, we set up a private hotline that bankers could call if they had any worries about the validity of personal checks brought to them by IndyMac's customers. When they called the hotline, we told them if the customer had enough money to cover the check. After taking these and a few other steps, the problem was fixed.

      After the first couple of weeks, the volume of deposit withdrawals died down. The FDIC stepped up its educational campaign on the safety of deposit insurance and made some changes to simplify how trust accounts were insured.

      I felt that our initial set of challenges had been addressed. The first priority in any bank failure is to maintain public confidence. It had been a rough start, but now the situation had stabilized.