WASHINGTON - March 26, 2011 - Regulators on Friday shut down a small bank in Illinois, boosting to 26 the number of U.S. bank failures this year after 157 succumbed in 2010 to the sputtering economy and piles of soured loans.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. seized Bank of Commerce, with one office in Wood Dale, Illinois, $163.1 million in assets and $161.4 million in deposits. Advantage National Bank Group, based in Elk Grove Village, Illinois, agreed to assume the assets and deposits of the failed bank.

In addition, the FDIC and Advantage National Bank Group agreed to share losses on $145.7 million of Bank of Commerce's loans and other assets.

The failure of Bank of Commerce is expected to cost the deposit insurance fund $41.9 million.

Illinois has been one of the hardest-hit states for bank failures. Sixteen banks were shuttered in the state last year. The shutdown of Bank of Commerce was the third bank failure in Illinois this year.

Kalifornia, Florida and Georgia also have seen large numbers of bank failures.

The 157 bank closures last year topped the 140 shuttered in 2009. It was the most in a year since the savings-and-loan crisis two decades ago.

The FDIC said that 2010 likely would be the peak for bank failures. Already this year the pace of closures has slowed: By this time last year, regulators had closed 41 banks.

The 2009 failures cost the insurance fund about $36 billion. The failures last year cost around $21 billion, a lower price tag because the banks that failed in 2010 were smaller on average. Twenty-five banks failed in 2008, the year the financial crisis struck with force; only three were closed in 2007.