BANKING/FINANCE

All of the “trouble free” depositors at Orange County’s two recently liquidated savings and loans, North America and American Diversified, have been mailed checks reimbursing their insured deposits, according to Betsy Greer, spokeswoman for the Federal Home Loan Bank Board.

As of Friday, the bank board had issued 14,639 checks to depositors at the two S&Ls;, totaling $1.254 billion. The bank board oversees savings and loans and provides deposit insurance for accounts of up to $100,000 through the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corp.

The checks mailed so far cover about 94% of the institutions’ depositors and represent 92% of the estimated $1.35 billion that was on deposit when the two S&Ls; were closed by the bank board early this month.

Greer said that the accounts not yet reimbursed are those requiring “special handling.” For the most part, she said, that means accounts with balances that exceeded the $100,000 insurance limit. Processing of those accounts will proceed “slowly,” Greer said.

And the bank board kept its promise to process checks for the trouble-free deposits within 24 hours of receiving the account holder’s claim, said Greer. That doesn’t mean, however, that people got their checks that fast.

“We had some mail problems,” she said, “including one case where it took 12 days for a check to go from Washington to New York.”