Before the end of last week few had heard of the First National Bank of Nevada. Now it has become the seventh US bank to go bust in as many months.

Despite its name, there is nothing local about its business. The bank - declared insolvent on Friday by financial regulators in Washington - has repossessed properties stretching across the US, from three-bedroomed homes in Brooksville, Florida, to derelict apartments in Stockton, California. Wall Street has drawn comfort from the fact that First National and the much smaller First Heritage Bank of California, also declared insolvent on Friday, have been acquired by the respectable Mutual of Omaha Bank. Washington identified the troubled banks, operated an informal auction and found a buyer before anyone was the wiser. Quite a departure from the shambles surrounding Northern Rock.

But the gloomier news is that America's official receiver - the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation - has been forced to pick up the $860 million of distressed assets that the Mutual of Omaha would not touch. The FDIC, set up to insure banking deposits, is funded by a levy charged to other banks. But it is a finite pool. Two very small banks (they had assets of $3.6 billion between them) can cost $860 million to protect, while the collapse of IndyMac this month is expected to cost the FDIC about 10 per cent of its entire $52 billion fund. Wall Street is worried about the cost of bailing out the 300 banks expected to fold by 2011. It is likely that the FDIC will have to go to Congress to be allowed to establish a vehicle to buy bust banks, a bailout ultimately funded by the American taxpayer.

For a country so steeped in the free market, America can show some strikingly socialistic tendencies. Its anti-trust laws are among the most draconian. The FDIC safety net will get its money because the US Treasury will not allow US banks to fail.

Where does it leave their British counterparts? They will be reporting in coming days and by the end of the holiday season we should know whether the various cash-raisings, sales or impending sales will be sufficient to knit together ravaged balance sheets.

Note Tesco's decision to buy out the other half of its banking joint venture with Royal Bank of Scotland. Tesco has clearly decided that asset values have fallen sufficiently to make a deal with a forced seller an attractive one. RBS would not be the first partner to get the wrong side of a bargain with our biggest grocer.

But contrast our own attempts to shore up the mortgage market with the swift action in the US. Sir James Crosby will today produce his report on mortgage funding. It will say, initial reports suggest, that we could do this. Or we could do that. Or possibly the other. It hardly smacks of firm action, does it?

Times Recommends

• Lies and cover-up at MG Rover exposed by report
• High oil prices push manufacturing costs up
• Primark founder steps down as chief executive