Chicago-based Pulaski Savings Bank was shuttered Friday by the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation over what the agency called its “unsafe and unsound condition, along with its impaired capital position.”
Millennium Bank of Des Plaines, Illinois, agreed to purchase Pulaski in a sale facilitated by the DFPR and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which had been appointed receiver.
Pulaski’s failure will cost the FDIC’s Deposit Insurance Fund roughly $28.5 million, the FDIC said, adding that “suspected fraud caused the higher estimated cost to the DIF.”
No further explanation of Pulaski’s troubles was provided by the DFPR or FDIC. Millennium did not return a request for comment.
Pulaski, which reported $49.5 million in assets and $42.7 million in deposits as of Sept. 30, reopened its sole office Saturday as Millennium.
Millennium purchased all of Pulaski’s deposits for a 4.61% premium and roughly $45 million of the bank’s assets, according to the FDIC. The agency retained the remaining $4.5 million assets to sell at a later date, it said.
The DIF estimate “will change over time as assets are sold,” the FDIC said.
Pulaski is the first bank to fail in the U.S. in 2025. The last failure came in October, when Oklahoma-based First National Bank of Lindsay collapsed.
A still-active About Us page on Pulaski’s website said the bank has “conservative, no-nonsense practices” that help “to ensure that our successful past will lead to a bright future for all of us.”
The bank first opened its doors in 1890.
“We want to stress that not one customer with deposits at Pulaski Bank will lose a penny as a result of the steps taken today,” Susana Soriano, acting director of the DFPR’s division of banking, said in a prepared statement. “Our role as a bank regulator is to ensure the safety and soundness of Illinois-chartered banks, and today’s action means Millennium Bank is well-positioned to provide banking services to the customers of Pulaski Savings Bank.”
