The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) was created in 1933.
Congress established the FDIC through the Banking Act of 1933, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression. The law followed a severe banking crisis in which numerous bank closures wiped out deposits and undermined confidence in the financial system.
The agency began insuring eligible bank deposits in 1934. Its original purpose was to reassure the public that money placed in participating banks would be protected if a bank failed. That promise helped reduce the incentive for panicked withdrawals, often called bank runs.
A common date mix-up is 1935: the Banking Act of 1935 strengthened and made the FDIC permanent, but it did not create the agency. Another distinction matters too: the Federal Reserve was created in 1913, while the FDIC came two decades later as a response to Depression-era banking failures.