Washington Mutual's collapse — the largest US bank failure

Washington Mutual had grown rapidly during the 2000s housing boom by writing large volumes of subprime and other poor-quality mortgages, a strategy that left it heavily exposed once home prices began falling and defaults rose. Confidence in the bank deteriorated sharply after Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy in mid-September 2008, and depositors withdrew roughly $16.7 billion over the following ten days, a run that the bank's remaining capital could not absorb. On September 25, 2008, the Office of Thrift Supervision closed Washington Mutual Bank and appointed the FDIC as receiver; with $307 billion in assets, it remains the largest bank failure in US history, more than four times the size of Continental Illinois in 1984 even after adjusting for inflation. The FDIC immediately sold substantially all of the bank's assets and deposits to JPMorgan Chase for $1.9 billion, completing the resolution at no cost to the deposit insurance fund, though WaMu's holding company and shareholders were wiped out.