The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation on Tuesday proposed doubling the fees it charges US banks, as it warned that it faced about $40bn in losses from bank failures in the coming years.

About 90 per cent of US banks will see their basic deposit insurance fees double in the first quarter of 2009, from between 5 cents and 7 cents for each $100 of deposits to between 12 cents and 14 cents, according to a plan laid out on Tuesday by the FDIC, a government-backed agency that insures consumer deposits up to $250,000 (€183,000, £143,000). From the second quarter that range would widen to from 10 to 14 cents per $100.