One of those proposed efforts that seemed to fade from the spotlight as quickly as it was mentioned was creating a system that would allow banks to get bad assets — primarily subprime mortgages — off their books.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said today that it has a winner of its pilot offering in the Legacy Loans Program.

Residential Credit Solutions bid more than $64 million in cash for a 50 percent stake in a limited liability company organized by the FDIC to hold a portfolio of mortgages with $1.3 billion in unpaid principal.

The FDIC said it “received various bids that were very competitive.”

The rub to all of this is the portfolio was from Franklin Bank in Houston, which regulators closed in November.

As this program moves forward, it hopefully will be used to buy bad assets from banks that are still in business, thus preventing them from failing.

Of $5 million in loans this director took out from the bank, $3.2 million of the loans turned sour.

And the bank’s failure cost the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s deposit insurance fund $131 million.

I’m not implying that this director’s action caused the bank to fail. But there clearly was little oversight by the board.

That’s according to a Forbes story, and based off of research by Foresight Analytics.

The story says that Wells, which has 7.7 percent of the country’s market share in SBA loans, moved up to the top spot because of CIT Group’s struggles with heavy debt.

Use of debit cards has surpassed credit cards, accounting for slightly more than 50 percent of non-cash transactions.

That’s according to research from the TowerGroup.

But is this a trend or just a flash in the pan? Are people just temporarily suspending their debt-quenching tendencies, or have they learned their lessons from taking on too much debt?

Time will tell.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s survey of national bank examiners shows that 37 percent of banks examined were increasing their loan production. Thirty-one percent had little change in loan production, the survey said.

The survey also showed that underwriting standards by banks have tightened.

Regulators also closed Millennium State Bank of Texas in Dallas on Thursday.

That brings the total number of bank failures this year to 52.

On that day, state and federal regulators closed five banks: two in California, two in Georgia and one in Minnesota.

Up until then, the most banks regulators had closed on any one Friday was four, on April 24.

To date, 45 banks have failed in 2009. That includes First National Bank of Anthony, which was closed by the Comptroller of the Currency June 19. Its deposits and branches were assumed by SNB Bank of Kansas.

Since the banking crisis began in 2008, 70 banks have failed.

Some of the correspondence suggests there was great concern about people protecting themselves and their organizations from legal actions.

What really stands out was the acknowledgment by officials that Merrill was very troubled.

One senior Fed official writes: “Merrill is really scary and ugly.”

You can read some of those e-mails here, courtesy of The Eagle’s friends at the Charlotte Obeserver.

You’ll see that in a story I wrote for Saturday about some former Bank IV trust and wealth management officers joining Emprise Bank.

I fixate on the whole Bank IV connection because many of its leaders continue to operate in top jobs at several Wichita banks and companies.

That point was underscored recently while I was searching the Eagle’s library. Though I wasn’t looking for it, I ran across the Spring 1994 Kansas Bank Directory, which is sort of an industry guide to all of the banks that operate in the state and the people who guide them.

On page 280 of the 15-year-old directory is a list of Bank IV’s executive team: Tom Page, president, community banking; David Strohm, president, investments; Marilyn Pauly, president, Bank IV Wichita; Kurt Watson, executive vice president, retail and commercial banking; Monty Briley, executive vice president, specialized banking; Rolando Mayans, senior vice president and auditor;Jim Faith, senior vice president, correspondent banking; and Bryce Carr, president, Bank IV Derby.

Now, if we took that list of names, here’s what it looks like today: Tom Page, president and CEO of Emprise Bank; David Strohm, president of TrueNorth; Marilyn Pauly, vice chairman of Commerce Bank; Kurt Watson, president and chief operating officer of IMA Financial Group; Monty Briley, executive vice president of commercial banking at Emprise; Rolando Mayans, executive vice president at Equity Bank; Jim Faith, Sunflower Bank Wichita president; and Bryce Carr, executive vice president of trust and investments at Emprise.

Just from that sampling it’s easy to see that not only was Bank IV the state’s biggest bank ever, but it also was a training ground for Wichita’s business leaders today.

It’s better reporting that most of the mainstream media has done on the subject, but it doesn’t ask the question I hear most often: What does the bill do to help people who’ve had rates jacked up by the card companies before the bill becomes law?

I’d still be interested in the answer to that question.