Bank failure

2023 - 3 - 15

Bank failure panic fuels moment of opportunity for threat actors (Cybersecurity Dive)

As regulators step in to operate Silicon Valley Bank, threat hunters and security executives warned organizations to look out for malicious activity.

Leveraging a chaotic situation where people are confused, looking for information and not sure where to turn, they’re more apt to open random emails that may help them,” Gruner said. “Gaining access to a finance department laptop could provide a windfall for cybercriminal," Eyal Gruner, co-founder and CEO at Cynet, said via email. “Attackers are always looking for an angle. Threat actors don’t just follow the news — they react to it and identify new ways to target potential victims during moments of heightened sensitivity. “Currently, we are not tracking any cyberattacks or incidents associated with Silicon Valley Bank.” The failure of two banks in as many days and a widespread concern that this banking crisis could spread is just the latest event of global consequence for threat actors to glom onto.

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Image courtesy of "ABC News"

Why are some Republicans blaming bank failures on 'woke' policies? (ABC News)

Republicans are blaming what they call "woke" policies for the failures of two big banks and President Joe Biden for what they call the "Biden bailout" of ...

economy by strengthening public confidence in our banking system." "I'm not saying 12 white men would have avoided this mess, but the company may have been distracted by diversity demands." We'll do whatever is needed." benefited the most from SVB's risky behavior." "Americans can rest assured that our banking system is safe," Biden said from the White House. "This could be a trend, and there are consequences for bad Democrat policy." "How much money did they WASTE on financing ESG/CRT CRAP? "Your deposits are safe. Go woke, GET BROKE!" Bernie Sanders say led directly to Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank collapsing. [who called](https://twitter.com/HawleyMO/status/1635350798652821505) federal regulators stepping in to pay off deposits a "woke bailout," and House Oversight Chair James Comer, who on Sunday called Silicon Valley Bank "one of the most woke banks" [on Fox News](https://www.foxnews.com/politics/rep-comer-biden-unintentionally-helped-gop-stonewalling-business-dealings). [appearance](https://www.foxnews.com/media/desantis-warns-dems-theres-new-sheriff-town-vows-stop-agenda-tracks) on Fox News on Sunday, also raised the prospect of Silicon Valley Bank being "so concerned with DEI and politics," referring to diversity, equity, and inclusion, that it "really diverted from them focusing on their core mission."

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Image courtesy of "Politico"

What Silicon bank collapse could mean for climate (Politico)

The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank could have major implications for startups working to reduce planet-warming emissions, potentially undercutting ...

power supply is facing a potentially serious stumbling block: a string of failures in keeping the lights on during the harshest winter storms. Send your tips, comments, questions to [[email protected].](mailto:[email protected]) Farah.](https://www.eenews.net/articles/bidens-green-allies-promise-lawsuit-over-alaska-oil-project/) The groups argue the approval violated four environmental laws, [writes Andres Picon.](https://www.eenews.net/articles/biden-admin-unleashes-2-5b-for-ev-charger-network/) SVB was a major player in the space, participating in failure since the financial collapse of 2008, comes at a critical moment for climate technology, just as the administration is beginning to roll out the $369 billion in clean energy incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act. How SVB tanked: The bank, which has catered to the tech industry for decades, largely housed its assets in government bonds whose value started to plunge as the Federal Reserve raised interest rates. [writes Emma Dumain.](https://www.eenews.net/articles/how-murkowski-helped-move-biden-on-willow/) [writes Alex Guillén](https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/14/greens-biden-willow-oil-project-00087067). But it has yet to find a buyer willing to take on SVB’s domestic lending portfolio. The banking crisis, which is the largest U.S.

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Image courtesy of "Aljazeera.com"

Why has the Silicon Valley Bank collapse put spotlight on Trump? (Aljazeera.com)

The 2018 partial rollback of US's Dodd-Frank is under renewed scrutiny following the failure of California-based lender.

“Regulation is not a thermostat where you can just push it up or down – the details matter a lot. Although the details are not reported in their public filings, it appears that SVB did perform shock testing, aka, sensitivity analysis.” “I’m not sure anything will really come out of this from a regulatory perspective,” Chittenden told Al Jazeera. “The debate as to whether increasing the threshold for the financial institutions that get extra regulatory oversight from $50bn to $250bn in 2018 played a role in SVB’s collapse is already well under way. Michael Barr, the Fed governor who oversees supervision, was a big critic of the shift. The legislation raised the asset size threshold for banks considered too big to fail from $50bn to $250bn.

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Image courtesy of "WOKV"

Fed criticized for missing red flags before bank collapse (WOKV)

WASHINGTON — (AP) — The Federal Reserve is facing stinging criticism for missing what observers say were clear signs that Silicon Valley Bank was at high ...

The central bank subsequently voted to further reduce regulation for banks the size of Silicon Valley. The bank failures will likely color an upcoming Fed review of rules that set out how much money large banks must hold in reserve. On Monday, Powell announced that the Fed would review its supervision of Silicon Valley to understand how it might have better managed its regulation of the bank. Many critics also point to a 2018 law as softening bank regulations in ways that contributed to Silicon Valley's failure. The bank had grown rapidly. The bank was also overseen by the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation. Most banks would have sought to make other investments to offset that risk. Its assets quadrupled in five years to $209 billion, making it the 16th-largest bank in the country. As the Fed continually raised interest rates to fight inflation, leading to higher rates on Treasurys, the value of Silicon Valley Bank's bonds steadily lost value. That is far higher than is consistent with the Fed's 2% annual target. [latest government report on inflation](https://apnews.com/article/inflation-federal-reserve-interest-rates-banks-economy-40c98d52a8bc71e21a228ed5c1cbde86), released Tuesday, shows that price increases remain far higher than the Fed prefers, putting Chair Jerome Powell in a tougher spot. Its rate currently stands at about 4.6%, the highest level in 15 years.

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Image courtesy of "BBC News"

What do we know about the Silicon Valley and Signature Bank ... (BBC News)

When the US president himself goes out of his way to tell people that their money is safe, then you know the government is taking a financial crash seriously.

The fees that are charged to banks eventually roll down to the consumer. Who is it that will be at risk? So even if it's not through their taxes, Americans are, in fact, on the hook. But rising interest rates were partly to blame for this crisis. He went further to assure the American people will not pay the price. Let me repeat that: No losses will be borne by the taxpayer," Mr Biden said. "No losses will be borne by the taxpayers. Joe Biden's assurances on Monday weren't just for the customers of the two failed banks either. Silicon Valley Bank - which specialised in lending to technology companies - was shut down by US regulators who seized its assets on Friday. They have also created a completely new lending programme. Many of those accounts held amounts exceeding that $250,000 level. American regulators have tried to sell SVB.

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Another predictable bank failure (ZAWYA)

The news about the second-biggest bank failure in US history came just days after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell assured Congress that the financial ...

It is emblematic of deep failures in the conduct of both regulatory and monetary policy. It has been more than 115 years since the panic of 1907, which led to the establishment of the Federal Reserve System. After an anguishing weekend for those potentially affected throughout the country, the government finally did the right thing – it guaranteed that all depositors would be made whole, preventing a bank run that could have disrupted the economy. This would result in even greater market concentration – and less innovation – in the US financial system. (Lawrence Summers, who led the financial deregulation charge as US Treasury Secretary under President Bill Clinton, also called for a bailout of SVB – all the more remarkable after he took a strong stance against helping students with their debt burdens.) Powell said that there would be pain as the Fed relentlessly raised interest rates – not for him or many of his friends in private capital, who reportedly were planning to make a killing as they hoped to sweep in to buy uninsured deposits in SVB at 50-60 cents on the dollar, before the government made it clear that these depositors would be protected. The shareholders and bondholders, who benefited from the firm’s risky behavior, should bear the consequences. A safe and sound banking system is a sine qua non of a modern economy, and yet America’s is not exactly inspiring confidence. Given the large and rapid increases in interest rates Powell engineered – probably the most significant since former Fed Chair Paul Volcker’s interest-rate hikes of 40 years ago – it was predicted that dramatic movements in the prices of financial assets would cause trauma somewhere in the financial system. While new technologies haven’t changed the fundamentals of banking, they have increased the risk of bank runs. By the standards of Citibank, SVB is small. The news about the second-biggest bank failure in US history came just days after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell assured Congress that the financial condition of America’s banks was sound.

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Image courtesy of "The New York Times"

The Bank Failures, Explained (The New York Times)

And that is what the Biden administration and the Federal Reserve are trying to stop: a financial crisis largely prompted by plunging confidence. The collapse.

[could become more cautious](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/13/business/economy/federal-reserve-interest-rates.html)about raising interest rates to control rising prices. [ill-fated decisions and panicked customers](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/10/business/silicon-valley-bank-stock.html?action=click&pgtype=Article&state=default&module=styln-svb-collapse&variant=show®ion=MAIN_CONTENT_1&block=storyline_top_links_recirc), Silicon Valley Bank became the [biggest U.S. [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]). You can reach the team at But it already has more than $55 million in pledged donations from philanthropists, including Melinda French Gates, Tory Burch and the Walmart billionaire Alice Walton. [plummeted yesterday](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/13/business/smaller-banks-stocks.html), hitting midsize and smaller institutions in particular. The Smithsonian’s American Women’s History Museum is early in development. The economic slowdown that the Fed hopes for would still affect everyday Americans, in both lower prices and also potentially higher unemployment rates. The Fed, after all, has been raising interest rates Market conditions and the Federal Reserve, America’s central bank, help determine that interest rate. “It didn’t put calm back in the system,” said my colleague Maureen Farrell, who covers business. It can be maddeningly complex, so I want to use today’s newsletter to explain some of the basics.

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Image courtesy of "KCRA Sacramento"

DOJ and SEC are investigating Silicon Valley Bank's failure (KCRA Sacramento)

The U.S. Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission are opening investigations into the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, according to sources ...

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Image courtesy of "CBS News"

Silicon Valley Bank collapse: How to protect your money when ... (CBS News)

Worried about the FDIC's $250000 insurance cap? Read on to learn about different ways to safeguard your cash.

He chose the bank at the recommendation of his investors and because it catered to customers in the life sciences industry. Some firms do the work of spreading funds out across multiple banks for the depositor, who only has to manage one relationship. "In most cases, it finds a healthy bank to assume deposits, and it often assumes all deposits above the FDIC limit even though it's not guaranteed," said Ken Tumin, founder of Deposit Accounts, a banking research site. For a company with a $1 million payroll to meet each week, maintaining four different bank accounts, each holding $250,000, is wise, according to other financial experts. Consumers can multiply the FDIC coverage limit fairly easily through a variety of methods. Here's how to safeguard your cash, and what to know about protections for customers with deposits over the FDIC's $250,000 limit.

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U.S. bank failure treated as 'extinction event' in Waterloo Region ... (CTV Toronto)

The failure of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) in the U.S. led to a weekend of crisis management in Waterloo Region as roughly 10 per cent of tech start-ups in ...

Michelin plant to produce more tires for electric vehicles](https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/140-million-announced-to-help-modernize-n-s-michelin-plant-to-produce-more-tires-for-electric-vehicles-1.6312351) Montreal is getting a new aquarium that is set to open next year. pedestrian deaths charged; police identify victims](https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/suspect-in-amqui-que-pedestrian-deaths-charged-police-identify-victims-1.6312196) [Toronto](https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/) [New program helps Ontario homebuyers with down payments. Following an audit by the Roman Catholic Church, 27 Jesuits have been linked to complaints of child sexual abuse and 13 of them worked in northern Ontario. A Russian fighter jet struck the propeller of a U.S. The alleged driver who killed two people and injured nine with a pick-up truck in the small Quebec town of Amqui on Monday has been charged with two counts of dangerous driving causing death. Albinson hopes to see Canadian officials take similar steps made in the U.K., where HSBC rescued the British arm of SVB by buying the branch for £1. “By taking temporary control of the Canadian branch of Silicon Valley Bank, we are acting to protect the rights and interests of the branch’s creditors,” said Peter Routledge, superintendent of financial institutions, in a statement. investor withdrew its funding to take stock of the SVB fallout. “There was really a fear that a whole generation of founders and companies that we’ve been working so hard to build over the last five to seven years could collapse.” The failure of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) in the U.S.

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Silicon Valley Bank collapse: What you need to know (Reuters)

Battered Japanese bank stocks clawed back some of their heavy losses, as regulators and financial executives hosed down investor concerns about contagion ...

[(.SPLRCBNKS)](https://www.reuters.com/quote/.SPLRCBNKS) rebounded 1.4%, leaving it with a 26% loss over the past five sessions. * Traders currently see a 77% chance of a 25 basis-point increase at the meeting, while expectations for no rate hike have fallen to 23%. [urged confidence in the U.S. [(C.N)](https://www.reuters.com/companies/C.N) regained almost 6% and Wells Fargo [(WFC.N)](https://www.reuters.com/companies/WFC.N) added 4.6%. inflation data that was in line with expectations. First Republic Bank [(FRC.N)](https://www.reuters.com/companies/FRC.N) surged 27%, while KeyCorp [(KEY.N)](https://www.reuters.com/companies/KEY.N) jumped 7%. Markets and financial authorities remained on edge, however, with U.S. [(APO.N)](https://www.reuters.com/companies/APO.N), Blackstone Inc [(BX.N)](https://www.reuters.com/companies/BX.N) and KKR & Co Inc [(KKR.N)](https://www.reuters.com/companies/KKR.N) have expressed interest in a book of loans held by SVB, [Bloomberg News reported](/business/finance/apollo-blackstone-eye-svb-assets-bloomberg-news-2023-03-14/), citing people familiar with the matter. * U.S. [(SBNY.O)](https://www.reuters.com/companies/SBNY.O) association with crypto clients before regulators suddenly seized the lender last weekend, [Bloomberg](/markets/us/signature-bank-faced-criminal-probe-ahead-its-collapse-bloomberg-news-2023-03-15/) also reported. [(SCHW.N)](https://www.reuters.com/companies/SCHW.N) has ample liquidity, [the chief executive](/business/finance/charles-schwab-ceo-says-firm-has-liquidity-not-seeking-capital-or-deals-2023-03-14/) of the bank and brokerage said, moving to allay concerns about a "doomsday scenario" that has weighed broadly on bank stocks. [(GS.N)](https://www.reuters.com/companies/GS.N) was [the acquirer of a bond portfolio](/business/finance/goldman-sachs-bought-svbs-bond-portfolio-lender-says-2023-03-14/) on which it booked a $1.8 billion loss, a transaction that set in motion the failure of SVB.

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Image courtesy of "The Australian Financial Review"

Silicon Valley Bank collapse: Australian banks are safe after SVB ... (The Australian Financial Review)

Australia's top financial regulators have sought to reassure markets and savers that the financial system is strongly capitalised and flush with liquidity.

He was previously an economist at the Reserve Bank of Australia and at UBS. [Sign up now](https://login.myfairfax.com.au/signup_newsletter/10122?channel_key=9ME3ACTT4ZYY1fEMfvR2EA&callback_uri=https://www.afr.com) [Michael Read](/by/michael-read-p4yw7h)reports from the federal press gallery at Parliament House. He writes on economics, financial services, and politics. [The failure of SVB ](https://www.afr.com/topic/silicon-valley-bank-collapse-6fx4)and concerns about the fate of other US regional banks have caused investors to [pare back expectations](https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/rba-could-hit-pause-if-svb-contagion-spreads-20230313-p5crk4) for future rate increases, with markets on Wednesday fully pricing for the cash rate to stay on hold at 3.6 per cent when the RBA next meets on April 4. [made similar statements on Tuesday](https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/chalmers-says-local-banks-are-safe-as-markets-dump-rate-rise-bets-20230314-p5crxk), saying regulators were closely monitoring the situation and the potential effect on the Australian financial system. The Council of Financial Regulators (CFR) – a co-ordinating body for APRA, ASIC, Treasury and the RBA – had its regular quarterly meeting last Friday, and then met to discuss the effects of the failure of the US-based SVB.

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Class action launched after historic Silicon Valley Bank collapse ... (Law Society Journal)

Just days after it collapsed on Friday 10 March, one of the bank's shareholders filed a securities class action lawsuit against its parent company SVB Financial ...

they would not have purchased the Company’s securities at the artificially inflated prices that they did, or at all,” the lawsuit says. “The details are still a little bit opaque. “Had Plaintiff and the other members of the Class been aware that the market price of the Company’s securities had been artificially and falsely inflated by the Company’s and the Individual Defendants’ misleading statements . Vanipenta claims he bought shares at “artificially inflated” prices due to false statements made by SVB’s management group. But back in January there were some warnings that their balance sheet might have issues.” Last week, the bank’s stock collapsed under the weight of $US42 million ($63 billion AUD) in withdrawals after they disclosed a $1.8 billion loss on bonds purchased before interest rates began to spike.

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Image courtesy of "ABC News"

Fed criticized for missing red flags before bank collapse (ABC News)

The Federal Reserve is facing stinging criticism for missing what observers say were clear signs that Silicon Valley Bank was at high risk of collapsing ...

The central bank subsequently voted to further reduce regulation for banks the size of Silicon Valley. The bank failures will likely color an upcoming Fed review of rules that set out how much money large banks must hold in reserve. On Monday, Powell announced that the Fed would review its supervision of Silicon Valley to understand how it might have better managed its regulation of the bank. Many critics also point to a 2018 law as softening bank regulations in ways that contributed to Silicon Valley's failure. The bank had grown rapidly. The bank was also overseen by the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation. Most banks would have sought to make other investments to offset that risk. Its assets quadrupled in five years to $209 billion, making it the 16th-largest bank in the country. That is far higher than is consistent with the Fed's 2% annual target. Its rate currently stands at about 4.6%, the highest level in 15 years. Its management took excessive risks by buying billions of dollars of mortgage-backed securities and Treasury bonds when interest rates were low. The Fed was the primary federal supervisor of the bank based in Santa Clara, California, that failed last week.

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Image courtesy of "NPR"

For 40 years, Silicon Valley Bank was a tech industry icon. It ... (NPR)

Silicon Valley Bank was not a household name. For four decades, SVB successfully competed with big name financial institutions only to come crumbling down ...

"This bank would seem perfectly at home in the 1920s or the 1870s: Lots of deposits and a lot of local customers," Metrick said. Federal regulators took control of the bank on Friday. This meant a majority of the bank's deposits were not insured by the government. And with the tech sector struggling recently, more depositors took their money out. SVB said on its website at the time that "44% of U.S. "These guys have been around for a long time, they're a huge institution in Silicon Valley," Metrick said. In the 1990s the company opened offices across the U.S. That year, SVB's wine practice "accounted for 6% of the bank's $14.6 billion gross loan portfolio," the website reported. SVB opened an Israel office in 2008 and a U.K. He teaches in the university's accounting and finance department. You could feel the mania and the panic and the concern and the interest. The bank's collapse has had a unique impact on the area, said San José State University Assistant Professor Matthew Faulkner.

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Image courtesy of "IR Magazine"

Silicon Valley Bank failure and implications for IROs (IR Magazine)

On March 8, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) announced it had sold about $21 bn of assets, taking a $1.8 bn loss on the sales.

Decisions to make specific statements should be confirmed with the management team and possibly the board. In the current interest-rate environment, as rates increased, the value of these investments decreased, so any needing to be sold were sold at a loss. They also stated that no losses from the banks will be borne by taxpayers. Customers of the bank were possibly made even more fearful by warnings from a number of private equity firms that had backed its early funding and were reported to have recommended the withdrawals. To put that in perspective, when Washington Mutual failed in 2008, it was the largest bank failure ever. Over the course of the day, the bank’s customers withdrew $42 bn.

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Image courtesy of "Los Angeles Times"

Silicon Valley Bank failure, executive trades probed by DOJ, SEC (Los Angeles Times)

U.S. authorities are examining the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank for misconduct by officers, including whether stock sales by executives violated trading ...

The investigation was first reported by the Wall Street Journal. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California and the Securities and Exchange Commission, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the investigation hasn’t been publicly disclosed. The Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission declined to comment.

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Image courtesy of "The New York Times"

Bank Failures, the Fed and an 'Uncertain Juncture' in the Economy (The New York Times)

A reporter explains the Federal Reserve's quagmire as several banks have failed ahead of its next interest rate decision.

By the same token, in 2020, we thought things were going to be disastrous — and nobody even remembers that there was a financial crisis in 2020. We were covering the breaking news story of these banks getting closed down and who’s getting protected, who’s not getting protected and who’s paying for it. It’s reading broadly and not just reading about the news that you are involved in. Is this the end of the road or is this the canary in the coal mine? We saw it use them again in 2020 at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. With that kind of comparison in mind, how do you and your colleagues approach your reporting? We don’t actually know the answer to that question yet. [Silicon Valley Bank](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/10/business/silicon-valley-bank-stock.html), which lent money mostly to technology start-ups, became [the largest bank to fail since 2008, during the height of the financial crisis](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/03/10/business/bank-failures-silicon-valley-collapse.html). So the fact that you can’t get your cash fast enough doesn’t become a situation where you don’t have any cash at all. We got the announcement that they would also close Signature Bank and that the Fed was setting up a new lending facility to try and keep the system calm. Then late Sunday night, we got the announcements that the Fed, the Treasury and the F.D.I.C. I had houseguests — I was pretty much the worst host of all time.

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Silicon Valley Bank failure may prompt closer look at munis (Bond Buyer)

The fall of Silicon Valley Bank is forcing regulators to take a closer look at asset structure and the integrity of depository institutions, ...

"Certainly, they're going to look at the assets structures and how they, how they can be liquid and liquidated in stressful times," Brock said. "I think that any investor, who was holding long term fixed rate assets throughout the year last year, saw a decline in value." "They're going to have to re-look at asset structures and structural integrity of depository institutions," said Emily Brock, director of the federal liaison center at the Government Finance Officers Association. He also noted that some indirect evidence points to a change in banks' investment behavior. While the bill lowered the liquidity threshold for many institutions including Silicon Valley Bank, the bill also reclassified municipal bonds as high-quality liquid assets, a measure that muni leaders and lobbyists all pulled for. history, will likely force regulators to take a closer look at depository institutions and their related affiliates and is prompting a Dodd-Frank like scenario where muni leaders may be called to testify in front of Congress to provide critical information about public finance.

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Silicon Valley Bank failure: were Trump policies or 'woke' efforts to ... (Tampa Bay Times)

PolitiFact | Liberals and conservatives have pointed fingers at different issues to blame for the bank's collapse.

“Why did the San Francisco Federal Reserve hold back when everyone knew that Silicon Valley Bank was heavily exposed to the tech industry and its investments were deteriorating?” Baxter said. The emergence of lightspeed online information sharing on social media platforms has heightened the risks for banks and their depositors in a way that regulators have not caught up to, Allen said. “Silicon Valley Bank is not a ‘Main Street bank’ and never was,” Klein said. That had grown to $212 billion by the time the bank crumbled, but that still would have shielded the bank from many key regulations, including standards for how much capital the bank kept on hand (keeping more capital allows banks to fulfill depositor withdrawals in a crisis) and for liquidity (more liquid holdings enable banks to quickly convert value into cash if needed). But Baxter added that the bank failure cannot be blamed solely on the change in the Dodd-Frank law. The 2010 measure was designed to increase financial services regulation in a way that would avoid a repeat of the crisis that tipped the nation into the Great Recession. Whereas the original Dodd-Frank law mandated stricter capital and liquidity standards for institutions with $50 billion in assets, the rewrite raised the minimum for such requirements to those with at least $250 billion in assets. “These recent bank failures are the direct result of leaders in Washington weakening the financial rules.” [saying](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/silicon-valley-bank-collapse-puts-new-spotlight-2018-bank-deregulation-rcna74655), “Unfortunately, the last administration rolled back some of these requirements. The bank did this because it needed to [free up money](https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/11/business/svb-bank-collapse-explainer-timeline/index.html) to meet withdrawal demands. Silicon Valley Bank, now the second-largest bank to collapse in U.S. [panic began](https://www.vox.com/technology/23634433/silicon-valley-bank-collapse-silvergate-first-republic-fdic) after Silicon Valley Bank announced it sold $21 billion worth of its investments at a nearly $2 billion loss.

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Silicon Valley Bank Collapse: A Timeline of the Panic (The New York Times)

Silicon Valley Bank's collapse led to the failure of a second bank and prompted regulators to move to contain the fallout in the U.S. banking system.

[Silicon Valley Bank’s British subsidiary](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/13/business/svb-uk-hsbc-bank.html). [the banking sector](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/10/business/silicon-valley-bank-stock.html), and investors started to dump bank stocks, including those of First Republic, Signature Bank and Western Alliance. [to stay calm](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/09/business/silicon-valley-bank-investors-worry.html). [a speech](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/13/business/biden-assures-americans-our-banking-system-is-safe.html), said the U.S. Yellen reassured investors](https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy1334)that the banking system was resilient. Bill Ackman, the billionaire investor, [suggested](https://twitter.com/BillAckman/status/1634028534107602944)that Silicon Valley Bank could fail and need a bailout. “No losses will be borne by the taxpayers.” And the Fed announced that it The failure of the 40-year-old institution became the largest bank crash since the 2008 financial crisis, and it put nearly $175 billion in customer deposits under the regulator’s control. Moody’s, a credit ratings firm, downgraded the bank’s bond rating and slashed its outlook to negative, from stable. On March 10, Silicon Valley Bank, one of the most prominent lenders in the start-up ecosystem, collapsed. It was forced to sell a bond portfolio at a $1.8 billion loss.

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Pentagon Mobilized to Support Tech Startups After Bank Failure (Defense One)

In the hours after Silicon Valley Bank collapsed on March 10, Pentagon officials who work directly with startups that develop national-security technologies ...

I think this is a huge opportunity for DOD and the federal government to find new forms, new mechanisms for financing that bridge,” he said. And the relationship between those entities and a very small handful of key institutions like SVB is a big national-security concern, he said. But the SVB debacle is not just an alarm bell for the fragility of the U.S. “You certainly would have seen the national-security implications for autonomy for AI, for cyber space, a lot of the sectors which are so vibrant right now and could be used to better effect by the Defense Department,” he said. “If you want to change the capability of the force near-term, you've got to be looking at buying lots of small things, which are what the commercial sector provides. Many of the young startups that had funds in SVB were working on projects with clear defense and national-security applications. [Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin] would have been cheering to see so many companies fail.” “It would be like cutting the [research and development] for all of those different companies. The Pentagon has a real gap in fielding innovative technologies quickly, he said. Had SVB collapsed, Brown said, it would have hit some of the companies that he works with very hard. Would startups that had money in the bank need to stop work? But much of that money is for developing capabilities that will only be available later in the decade, Brown said.

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Image courtesy of "The Conversation UK"

Silicon Valley Bank: 19th-century financial crises show how today's ... (The Conversation UK)

New rules following a spate of bank failures in 19th century Britain could provide some lessons for today's regulators.

Just as in England and Wales in 1826, the personal cost of bank failure is severe and governments should take steps to avoid such consequences. The private banks of the early 19th century were very different to SVB. The shock of a bank failure is both immediate and long lasting, as we know from the 2008 global financial crisis. The new banks were motivated to achieve local and regional benefits through provision of successful, stable and profitable banking services. Unsurprisingly then, the reforms were opposed by both private bankers and the Bank of England, but were nevertheless passed by parliament. The 1829 prospectus of the York City and County Bank declared: Our research in this area shows that the causes of the crisis were complex. Most survived until the end of the 19th century, when they were absorbed and became branches of the “Big Five” banks that emerged at the start of the 20th century: Lloyds, Barclays, National Provincial, Westminster Bank and Midland Bank. But the result was a widespread loss of confidence in private banks. Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) is the second largest bank failure in US history but its focus was specific, it specialised in providing funding to start-ups, venture capitalists and technology firms. Although these banks all differed from SVB in terms of scale and volume of finance provided, these early 19th-century institutions served specific communities. A bank failure wipes out the money available to its customers and freezes any capital that’s already in circulation.

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Silicon Valley Bank Collapse Produces An Early Winner: Digital Banks (Forbes)

Mercury and other fintechs serving startups are seeing demand spike. But can they hold on to the new customers?

(Mercury suggests that funds in excess of $3 million be placed in Vanguard’s Treasury Money Market mutual fund and offers an interface for customers to do just that.) If a Mercury customer chooses Evolve and has $3 million to deposit, Evolve will divide up that money between 12 different banks it partners with. “You tend not to panic when you have long-term shareholders versus institutional money that has to perform in their stock portfolios,” he says. Besides being slower, the banking behemoths may not offer startups and the venture capital community the same level of attention and focus and the customized products that SVB did (and the digital banks aspire to). [billions in new deposits](https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/10/fintech-brex-got-billions-of-dollars-in-silicon-valley-bank-deposits-thursday.html), though the company declined to confirm any dollar amounts. Of course, nearly all digital banks aren’t technically banks with bank charters and FDIC insurance–instead they partner with traditional banks that hold customers’ deposits in insured accounts. (It has raised $152 million from Coatue Management, Andreessen Horowitz, CRV and others and was last valued in July 2021 at $1.6 billion.) “They're still waiting, and they're going to be waiting for a week.” A JPMorgan spokesperson declined to comment. “It's way too early to declare victory.” She thinks many companies will opt to put their money in the largest U.S. Over the weekend, as [federal bank regulators scrambled](https://www.forbes.com/sites/marisadellatto/2023/03/12/fdic-will-protect-all-silicon-valley-bank-deposits-after-sudden-collapse-treasury-says/) to make sure SVB’s failure didn’t set off a broader bank run, Mercury’s workers scrambled too; its normal account-opening staff was doubled to 60, as risk and compliance pros, plus volunteer software engineers and salespeople (who got a crash course in how to verify and approve new customers), pitched in. San Francisco-based credit card startup Brex, which offers a business banking account, added 3,000 new customers over the past week and reportedly also took in And according to venture capitalists, Mercury has likely been the biggest winner so far among the fintech digital banks.

Ed tech sector wary following Silicon Valley Bank failure (K-12 Dive)

Resulting service disruptions could have then triggered the breaking of contracts. “If the companies were to break payroll for a longer time, ...

According to AEI, the bank services more than 15% of Massachusetts charter schools, and an inability to access funds could have affected upwards of 9,247 students. This, he said, contributes to an environment where a “herd mentality” over, say, a better interest rate can lead to a run like the one that led to SVB’s downfall. Essentially, the bank found itself stretched thin as startups needed to utilize more of their funds in an environment where venture investments had slowed significantly because of interest rate increases made by the U.S. But none of this came to pass, at least so far,” said Sarlin, a 15-year veteran of the ed tech industry. [more than half of all](https://news.crunchbase.com/venture/silicon-valley-bank-impact/) U.S. Resulting service disruptions could have then triggered the breaking of contracts.

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