Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) was a commercial bank headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and a subsidiary of SVB Financial Group until the bank’s assets were transferred to a bridge bank, Silicon Valley Bridge Bank, N.A., due to failure. SVB was the 16th-largest bank in the United States at the time of its failure on March 10, 2023, and was the largest bank by deposits in Silicon Valley. A state-chartered bank and member of the Federal Reserve System, SVB operated from offices in 13 countries and regions and was regulated by the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI).
SVB was deeply entrenched in the tech startup ecosystem and the default bank for many high-flying startups; its abrupt fall marked one of the largest bank failures since the 2008 global financial crisis.The bank failed after clients — many of the venture capital firms and VC-backed companies that the bank had cultivated overtime — began pulling out their deposits, creating a run on the bank.
Expansion (1995–2022)
2002 – entered the private banking business
2003 – bank sponsored three high-profile international trade
2004 – announced an international expansion drive
2007-2008 = Financial Group received a $235 million investment
2011 – $300 million stock sale to buy back the government’s interest
2012 – create a separate Shanghai-based bank
2015 – invested in a Hangzhou-based loan guarantee company
2016 – help startups register as U.S. corporations.
2022 – SVB began to incur steep losses
On March 10, 2023, SVB failed after a run on its deposits.The DFPI seized the bank and placed it into the receivership of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) in the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history.On March 12, 2023, a joint statement by Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome H. Powell, and FDIC Chairman Martin J. Gruenberg said all depositors at SVB would be fully protected and have access to all of their money–including both insured and uninsured deposits–starting the following Monday, March 13. On Monday, the newly-created and FDIC-administered successor, Silicon Valley Bridge Bank, N.A., began operations and assumed ongoing business
When Silicon Valley Bank was founded, the banking industry did not have a good understanding of startup companies, particularly those that lacked revenue. The bank structured its loans with the understanding that startups do not earn revenue immediately, managing risk based on their business model.The bank connected customers to its extensive venture capital, law, and accounting firm network. Its main strategy was collecting deposits from businesses financed through venture capital. It then expanded into banking and financing venture capitalists, adding services to allow the bank to keep clients as they matured from their startup phase. Initially, startup founders seeking loans from the bank had to pledge about half of their shares as collateral, but the rate later fell to about seven percent, reflecting a low failure rate and founders’ tendency to pay off the loans to stay in control of the company. The bank covered losses by selling the shares to interested investors.
Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank failed with enormous speed – so quickly that they could be textbook cases of classic bank runs, in which too many depositors withdraw their funds from a bank at the same time. The failures at SVB and Signature were two of the three biggest in U.S. banking history, following the collapse of Washington Mutual in 2008.
A bank faces interest rate risk when the rates increase rapidly within a shorter period.
March 2022 The Federal Reserve has been aggressively raising rates – 4.5 percentage points so far
U.S. government Treasury notes hit a 17-year high of 5.25% in March 2023
Is the government bailing out SVB?
Separately, the Fed said it will provide financing by offering loans of up to a year to eligible banks and other financial institutions. The move is intended to prevent a wave of bank runs that would threaten the stability of the banking system and the economy as a whole. But President Joe Biden stressed yesterday that “no losses” stemming from the collapse of the Silicon Valley and Signature banks would be borne by taxpayers. He said he would ask Congress and federal regulators to tighten banking rules to make it less likely that a major failure happens again.
Conclusion :
A bridge bank assumes the deposits and certain other liabilities and purchases certain assets of a failed bank. The bridge bank structure is designed to “bridge” the gap between the failure of a bank and the time when regulators stabilize the institution and implement an orderly resolution.FDIC said that depositors will have full access to their money beginning from today, when Siicon Valley Bank, N.A., the bridge bank, opens and resumes normal banking hours and activities, including online banking.Depositors and borrowers will automatically become customers of Silicon Valley Bank, N.A. and will have customer service and access to their funds by ATM, debit cards, and writing checks in the same manner as before, the agency said. Silicon Valley Bank’s official checks will continue to clear and loan customers should continue making loan payments as usual, FDIC said.
Banks under review by Moody
- First Republic Bank
- Zions Bancorporation
- Western Alliance Bancorp
- Comerica Inc
- UMB Financial Corp and Intrust Financial Corporation
Largest U.S. banks
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