He said he had ordered the bank's hours to be extended by two hours starting today, so branches would be open 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. And he said there would be about 100 additional employees -- some from IndyMac, some from the FDIC -- to speak to depositors.
Customers concerned about uninsured deposits were advised to call a toll-free number, (866) 806-5919, for an appointment to discuss their accounts. But a number of depositors complained Monday of being unable to get through to anyone on the hotline.
In another move to assist customers, FDIC spokesman Andrew Gray said IndyMac would put foreclosure proceedings on hold and attempt to modify troubled mortgages to keep borrowers in their homes.
That will be easiest to do with about $15 billion of loans that IndyMac owns outright. But the agency also hopes to modify troubled loans among $185 billion in mortgages that have been bundled into securities and sold to investors, with IndyMac as the servicer, or bill collector.
"We do believe that there's significant flexibility to modify the terms of these securitized loans," he said.
IndyMac was hobbled by massive defaults on loans made at the height of the real estate market and a huge outflow of deposits that began late last month. Some regulatory officials have suggested that Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) sparked the run on the bank by publicly questioning IndyMac's financial health.
IndyMac had been a leader in "alt-A" mortgages, which were made to borrowers with decent credit who often weren't required to verify their incomes to get the loans.
Downey Savings, based in Newport Beach, and First Federal Bank of California, based near Playa Vista, were specialists in so-called option-ARM loans -- the adjustable-rate mortgages that let borrowers pay so little that their loan balances would rise instead of going down. Washington Mutual was a major option-ARM lender as well.
Most option-ARM borrowers had passable credit scores, but Downey and WaMu also made loans to borrowers with blemished credit. Those subprime mortgages began defaulting in large numbers in late 2006, and option-ARM delinquencies have risen sharply in the last year.
Downey was at the top of a list of banks and thrifts with high ratios of defaulting and foreclosed loans, with 13.9% of its loans in those categories as of March 31, according to an analysis by Richard X. Bove of Ladenburg Thalmann. That was up from 1.1% a year before.
