Regional banks Comerica, First Horizon and Zions are at the greatest risk of being acquired by larger rivals, analysts warn, as industry faces shake up following collapse of Silicon Valley Bank - is yours at risk?

Regional banks Comerica, First Horizon and Zions are at risk of being targets for acquisition by larger rivals, according to a new report.

Since the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in March, the US banking industry has been poised for a reconfiguration that could see smaller regional banks wiped out.

That is because the collapse of SVB, and later Signature Bank, was a warning that new regulations may be needed to prevent another potentially more dangerous banking crisis.

Since regulations typically apply to banks of certain sizes, many will now be looking to alter their own size to place themselves in desirable regulatory categories, according to a research note by analysts at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW).

Specifically, banks with assets of between $80 billion and $120 billion will be worst positioned as new regulations will incur costs on them which larger banks will be able to afford more easily, according to the report. As such, larger banks will want to acquire them in a 'race for scale'.

The bigger banks likely to cannibalize them are those with strong returns such as Huntington, Fifth Third, M&T and Regions, according to the report.

This trend of banks merging is part of a wider and long-lasting trend of 'necessary consolidation' which has impacted the US banking industry in recent decades. 

The total number of FDIC-insured banks in the US has steadily decreased from more than 10,000 in the mid 1990s to just over 4,000 last year. Experts predict that trend will continue.

In the event that a bank is acquired, its existing customers will not lose deposits but may be issued new bank cards and become subject to different fees and savings account interest rates. 

'Banking is a naturally consolidating industry with an approximate 4 percent annual consolidate rate,' read the report. 

'Although recent activity has been fairly muted, we believe [mergers and acquisitions] will again play an active role for banks on either side of the profitability ledger in the coming years.'

The ideal size to be for banks to be has shifted over the years with the introduction and removal of regulations.

After the financial crisis of 2008, regulations were introduced to disincentive banks from surpassing the $50 billion size because at that point they were deemed Systemically Important Financial Institutions (SIFIs).

As a SIFI, they were required to hold extra capital against losses because their collapse would be too detrimental to the wider banking system. 

Then in July 2018, the Trump administration took deregulatory steps, increasing that $50 billion threshold to $250 billion.

Since then 15 banks - among them First Horizon and Zion - have crossed the $50 threshold, according to the KBW report. 

But the latest regulation proposed in July, months after the regional banking crisis, proposes heightened requirements on all banks with at least $100 billion in assets.

One of the major factors behind the collapse of SVB and Signature Bank in New York was unrealized losses on their balance sheets and a lack of insured deposits.

In SVB's case, more than 90 percent of its deposits were uninsured, according to the FDIC. After its failure, regulators have questioned whether the deposit insurance cap should be raised from the current $250,000 per depositor.

Banks are now waiting for clarity on regulations and interest rates before they will pursue deals, so exact outcomes are uncertain.

'We've seen it throughout banking history, when there's lines in the sand around certain sizes of assets, banks figure out the rules,' one of the reports authors, Christopher McGratty, told CNBC.

'There's still too many banks and they can be more successful if they build scale.'