Regulators in the U.S. have shut down Sillicon Valley Bank (SVB) – making it the largest bank failure since the 2008 financial crisis.
SVB, which was ranked as the 16th biggest bank in the States, closed on Friday (March 10) after a rush of depositors from the tech industry and capital-backed companies began withdrawing their money.
The US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has seized the bank’s assets as a means to “protect insured depositors”. They said the bank had $209 billion (£173 billion) in assets and $175.4 billion (£146 billion) in deposits at the time of failure.
Despite being based in Based in Santa Clara, the collapse of the bank was also felt in London where HSBC and Standard Chartered, the two biggest international banks on the FTSE 100, saw market falls drop more than 4.5%
Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets at Hargreaves Lansdown, said the failure of SVB caused a “state of mild panic” surrounding shares in the financial sector.
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