Regulators to the Rescue: US Treasury, Federal Reserve and FDIC Announce Plans to Restore Calm in the Banking Industry

US banking regulators issued a joint statement Sunday evening, declaring that all depositors in the failed Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) will have full access to their funds starting today regardless of the $250,000 per-depositor regulatory guarantee.

The US Treasury Department, Federal Reserve, and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) also announced they were making a “similar systemic risk exception” for customers of Signature Bank, a bank known for serving crypto industry clients, which was shut down by state regulators in New York.

In addition, regulators announced the creation of a new emergency lending program – Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP) – to ensure “banks have the ability to meet the needs of all their depositors.”

The program will accept bonds and other securities as collateral and will value them at par rather than current market prices, meaning banks with large unrealized losses on high-quality held-to-maturity assets thanks to rising interest rates will be able to borrow from the BTFP as if those assets had not lost value. The Treasury Department is putting up $25 billion from the Exchange Stabilization Fund to backstop the program.

The measures are not a bailout as taxpayers will not bear any costs associated with the move and the bank’s shareholders and bondholders will not be protected.

Regulators are seeking to insulate the rest of the banking system from the contagion effects of the two failures, including the potential for runs at other financial institutions that cater to specific industries.

First Republic Bank shares, a San Francisco-based lender that serves some of the same clientele (VC-backed tech and life sciences startups) as SVB plummeted by more than 70% in pre-market trading Monday. The collapse came despite an announcement from the bank that it had shored up its finances with additional funding from the Federal Reserve and JPMorgan Chase.