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Silicon Valley Bank’s failure highlights heightened financial stability risks amid monetary tightening

On March 10, California and federal banking regulators shut down Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and seized its deposits citing both illiquidity and insolvency. This is the 2nd largest failure of a U.S. financial institution after Washington Mutual in 2008. Although the bank was specialized in banking for tech startups in the Silicon Valley area, SVB was estimated to be the 16th largest commercial bank in the U.S. with about 209 billion USD in consolidated assets at the end of 2022. While its collapse doesn't appear to be systemic, it highlights the impact of rate hikes on financial stability and heightened risk in the US tech industry. The events are also a reminder that the impact of monetary tightening are still very much to come.