As bank failures mount, regulators are coming under increasing scrutiny for how and when they make the final call.

Walter G. Moeling, IV, a partner at Powell Goldstein LLP in Atlanta, said regulators are moving prudently.

"It's not necessarily waiting too long," he said. "FDIC's primary purpose is, number one, to keep a bank from failing. They only want to step in if there is no hope that a bank will make it through traditional free-market forces."