Question One
Looking at the trend of branches we can see that in 1934 there was no single branch. This is to mean that people had to access to banking branches since banking facilities were limited. Branches increased year by year and there were 83,320 braches in 2009. This to show that people have easy access to banking facilities since branches are many and they have varieties to choose from. Therefore the trends of bank branches from 1934 to 2009 shows that the public have more access to banking facilities due to increased bank branches.
In 1934 there were 14,146 showing that there was quite a significant number of banks but the access was limited since there were no branches. Today which is characterized by 2009, the number of banks is 6,839 but is accompanied by increase in branches. According to this table, it shows that the trend towards consolidation is continuing. This can be explained by the fact that the number of banks are decreasing as time goes by. This shows that banks are being involved in consolidation. This means that two or banks are coming together to join their resources and come up with one bank from which they can open more branches.
Question Two
Despite the fact that there are regulations which have been set aside to ensure that banks do not fail, there have been incidences of banks failing due to different reasons. In this case, the most recent year calendar is 2010. The total number of banks which failed was 154 including those which assistance was gives. Each of the 154 banks had its own assets. In combination the total amount of assets which the banks held at the time of their failure was 73,153,327. In 1937, the total number banks which failed were 75 including those which assistant was given. The three top states where bank failures occurred in 2010 include; Florida, Illinois and Georgia
Question Three
One of the failed banks in Washington DC was Pierce Commercial Bank situated in Tacoma. It was closed by Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and Washington Department of Financial Institutions on Friday, November 5, 2010. The total assets at its failure were 221,082. It had heavy losses which occurred as a result of leading for purposes of mortgages and construction. There were charges of fraud. There was a claim that $102,000 was given by the senior president in the name of mortgage. There were 5,253 loans which totaled for more than $990 million out of which half were in form of fraud. The bank was owned by Pierce County Bancorp.
Before Pierce Commercial Bank was closed, there were three banks which bid on its assets and deposits. The winner was Heritage Bank which got $41.2 million as discount over the assets which costed $221 million. It was supposed to pay 1% premium for all the 193.5 million worth of deposits. There were no arrangements to share losses between Heritage and FDIC. This means that if the loans by Pierce Commercial Bank are not paid, Heritage will suffer the losses without any compensation. Heritage was not the only bidder, there were other two bidders among them Opportunity bank who did no provide a better deal to FDIC. Opportunity Bank required 80% compensation over the losses which might occur due to unpaid loans. This was not possible ad FDIC had interest on the bidder who could lead to smaller losses. Pierce Commercial Bank got a lot of interest from the bidding price. However, it was not the only one which benefited; Heritage is also believed to have benefited from acquiring the assets of the Pierce Commercial Bank.
Pierce Commercial Bank was considered undercapitalized as per section 208.42 (b) (4). On June 1, 2010, the board of directors of Pierce Commercial Bank appointed Gary Gahan to be in the directive acting on behalf of the bank and consent to compliance to all the rules of the directive. In this situation, the board of directors consent to the closure of the bank since they selected a representative to act on their behalf in the directive.

References
http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/press/enforcement/enf20100615b1.pdf
http://www2.fdic.gov/hsob/hsobRpt.asp