Regulatory Failure 101: What the Collapse of Silicon Valley Bank Reveals
ProPublicaMAY 2023
A joint effort between the federal government and the US's largest banks has done well to avoid a run on banks with this lifeline for First Republic and other swift measures. The US banking sector, however, isn’t out of the woods yet, and it’ll take more government action to prevent a wider crash.
Amid the precarious financial environment, banks should have taken proactive measures to mitigate their losses, such as selling off their long-term bonds when they had a chance. It wasn’t a secret that the Fed intended to raise the yields on treasury bonds, yet many banks — such as Silicon Valley Bank — did nothing to shore up their vulnerable balance sheets.