By 2011 Georgia held the dubious distinction as the epicenter of bank failures in the aftermath of the Great Recession. But lawmakers who investigated the causes questioned whether some of the shuttered banks were victims of overzealous regulations and strained relations with examiners.

Between January 1, 2008 and August 15, 2011 Georgia suffered 67 bank failures, far more than any other state. Many of those banks collapsed due to lax lending practices that left them laden with bad debt after the downfall of the housing market. But other troubled banks with better track records struggled to broker deals with regulators, and their failures wiped out generations of wealth, said U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, the Georgia Republican who organized the hearing.

Bank executives complain of testy relations with regulators and onerous legislative restrictions. One banker said "second guessing and weariness" plagues interactions with bank examiners. Another said lenders are overwhelmed by the new rules imposed by last year's Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, passed in response to the 2008 financial crisis.

Other systemic problems could be traced to the 1990s, when state regulators seemed to relax strict standards to make it easier for potential bankers to get charters, said Gary Fox, the former chief executive of Bartow County Bank, which failed in April.

That led to a glut of banks in small communities that couldn't support new lenders, forcing them to seek more business at lower rates in other markets. Soon, competitors were flooding the metro Atlanta market trying to outdo each other.