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WASHINGTON -- Regulators on Friday shut United Security Bank, a small bank in Georgia, bringing the number of bank failures this year to 116 amid the struggling economy and a cascade of defaults on loans. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over United Security Bank, based in Sparta, with $157 million in assets and $150 million in deposits and two branches. Ameris Bank, based in Moultrie, Ga., agreed to assume the assets and deposits of the failed bank. The failure of USB is expected to cost the federal deposit insurance fund an estimated $58 million. With USB, 21 Georgia banks have failed this year, more than in any other state. Most of the failures have involved banks in the Atlanta area, where the collapse of the real estate market brought economic dislocation. Failures also have been especially concentrated in California and Illinois. As the economy has soured, with unemployment rising, home prices tumbling and loan defaults soaring, bank failures have cascaded and sapped billions out of the federal deposit insurance fund.

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