get_failures: Retrieve Historic Bank Failure Data

In fdic: Interface to 'BankFind Suite API'

Retrieve Historic Bank Failure Data

Description

Queries the ⁠/failures⁠ endpoint of the FDIC BankFind Suite API, returning data for failed financial institutions from 1934 to present.

Usage

get_failures(
  api_key = Sys.getenv("FDIC_API_KEY"),
  filters = NULL,
  fields = NULL,
  sort_by = NULL,
  descending = FALSE,
  limit = 10000
)

Arguments

api_key	(String) Your FDIC API key. Required: the FDIC does not accept unauthenticated requests. Defaults to the value of the FDIC_API_KEY environment variable. Register for a free personal key (1,000 req/hr) at https://api.data.gov/signup/.
filters	(String) An optional Elasticsearch query string to filter results. All field names and values must be uppercase.
fields	(String or Character vector) Fields to include in the response. An ID column is always present, regardless of the fields requested. To retrieve the most recently published API definition for an endpoint, replace the get_ prefix in the function name with fdic_ (e.g., ⁠get_{endpoint}()⁠ to ⁠fdic_{endpoint}()⁠).
sort_by	(String) Field name to sort results by. Defaults to the API default sort order for this endpoint.
descending	(Logical) Should results be sorted in descending order? Only applies when sort_by is specified. Defaults to FALSE.
limit	(Integer) Number of records to return. Must be between 1 and 10,000. Defaults to 10,000.

Value

A tibble containing bank failure data for FDIC-insured institutions, with one row per failure event.

Examples

# Return the 5 most recent bank failures
suppressMessages(get_failures(
  sort_by = "FAILDATE",
  descending = TRUE,
  limit = 5
))

# Filter to failures in a single state
suppressMessages(get_failures(
  filters = "PSTALP:NY",
  limit = 5
))

# Return specific fields only
suppressMessages(get_failures(
  fields = c("CERT", "FAILDATE", "NAME", "PSTALP"),
  limit = 5
))

fdic documentation built on Sept. 12, 2026, 5:09 p.m.