Are bank supervisors, or bank rules, too lax?

Mar 20, 2023
Do banking rules need tightening? Do supervisors need better training and greater powers? The answer will influence what comes next.
Politicians and lobbyists are debating whether Silicon Valley Bank collapsed due to a regulatory or supervisory failure. Above, Sen. Charles Grassley confers with Sen. John Cornyn during a Finance Committee hearing.
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Behind SVB's collapse were a whole lot of texts on messaging groups

Mar 17, 2023
Chatter among the bank's depositors on social media and texting groups may have exacerbated its demise.
Bank runs of the 1930s happened slowly, because we banked and communicated differently then.
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How freaked out are consumers these days?

Mar 17, 2023
Consumer sentiment isn't as gloomy as the failure of Silicon Valley Bank might lead you to expect.
According to a University of Michigan survey, consumer sentiment fell this month. But people seem to be more worried about their grocery bills and dwindling savings than about tremors in the financial system.
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Silicon Valley Bank's collapse reveals deeper flaws in the venture capital industry

Mar 16, 2023
VCs have been among the loudest voices calling for government insurance amidst SVB’s collapse, after pulling their funds out of the struggling bank.
Prominent venture capitalists were quick to call for government insurance of all Silicon Valley Bank's deposits after its collapse Friday.
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Regional banks rush to reassure customers after SVB failure

Mar 15, 2023
They're letting depositors know that their money is safe and highlighting differences between their banks and the ones that failed.
Above, people line up to try to retrieve funds at a Silicon Valley Bank branch on March 13. That anxiety has spilled over to customers who use other regional banks.
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Financial meltdowns often spur changes to financial regulation. So where do we go from here?

Mar 14, 2023
Regulators didn't catch Silicon Valley Bank before it failed. What can they do to catch others?
The Federal Reserve Board announced yesterday that it’s going to review what happened with the Silicon Valley Bank closure. Time will tell if more regulations will be placed upon larger banks like SVB and if banks themselves will take a closer look at their own risk committees.
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Regulators designated SVB and Signature Bank as systemic risks. But are they really?

Mar 13, 2023
The collapsed banks were granted a "systemic risk exception," which means the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. can guarantee uninsured deposits.
Though Silicon Valley Bank had assets of $209 billion, some economists question whether its failure presented "systemic risk" to the banking system or the economy.
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Bank rules rollback contributed to SVB's failure, critics say

Mar 13, 2023
The rollback of Dodd-Frank reforms exempted many of the country's largest banks from stricter regulations put in place after 2008.
Customers line up to retrieve funds from a Silicon Valley Bank in Santa Clara, California, on Monday. President Joe Biden partially blamed the rollback of Dodd-Frank banking regulations for SVB's failure.
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Bank failures add another dose of anxiety to uncertain economy

Mar 13, 2023
Viral terms like "bank run" do not help when we're already looking at high prices, rising interest rates and big layoffs in tech.
People line up outside a Silicon Valley Bank office in Santa Clara, California, on Monday. Worries were stoked by widespread news of bank failures, and some people received alarming emails from vendors associated with SVB.
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