NEW OWNERSHIP PICKS UP WHAT REMAINS OF SV BANK

Anxiety over regional economy continues

Barry Holtzclaw, Reporter

Two weeks after it collapsed in the face of a run on its deposits, former tech-lending giant Silicon Valley Bank—and the health of big and small technology companies—was in the national headlines once again.

Late in the night on Sunday, March 26, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation announced that First Citizens Bank, the nation’s 30th largest, will acquire the loans and deposits of SVB, which a month ago was the 16th largest bank, with the blessings—and underwriting—of federal regulators.

On March 28, the Senate Banking Committee began hearings on what went wrong, and who is to blame for the biggest banking collapse in nearly 15 years.

Democrats, led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren in the Senate and Silicon Valley’s Ro Khanna in the House, put the blame for the SVB demise squarely on a 2018 law passed by Congress and signed by then-President Trump to roll back regulations and ease so-called “stress tests” for mid-sized banks like SVB.

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