Federal Reserve to Conduct Review of Silicon Valley Bank Failure

The Federal Reserve on Monday announced plans to conduct an internal review of the oversight of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) after the bank’s abrupt failure last week.

“The events surrounding Silicon Valley Bank demand a thorough, transparent, and swift review by the Federal Reserve,” Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said in a statement.

The Fed’s Vice Chair for Supervision, Michael Barr, will lead the review, which is slated to be publicly released by May 1, according to the Fed.

“We need to have humility, and conduct a careful and thorough review of how we supervised and regulated this firm, and what we should learn from this experience,” Barr said in a statement.

Barr, a former Clinton and Obama administration official, was appointed by President Joe Biden in April 2022 following the failed nomination of Rep. Jamie Raskin’s (D-MD) wife, Sarah Bloom Raskin.

The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, one of 12 regional fed banks, was responsible for supervising Silicon Valley Bank, pursuant to a policy that requires banks with over $100 billion in assets to be directly supervised by the Federal Reserve.

The San Francisco Federal Reserve branch faced immediate criticism from politicians and pundits in the wake of Silicon Valley Bank’s failure.

“The San Francisco Fed had all the tools necessary to prevent this from happening,” Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) said in an interview. “We need to understand why the San Francisco Fed wasn’t utilizing all the tools at its disposal from an oversight standpoint.”

 

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