Silicon Valley Bank had what would be good for most banks. But the problem is that there's this thing called net interest margin where banks have to make a certain amount of money on your deposits. So they said, okay, let's put this in 10-year treasury bonds. They bought tens of billions worth of treasury bonds. This is pretty safe but it's locked up for 10 years. When interest rates went up very quickly, suddenly there was a problem because they couldn't access those for 10 years and they were worth much less. Starting last year, venture funding dried up, start-ups weren't getting this funding anymore from venture capitalists so they were drawing down their accounts. And
SVB’s collapse is the biggest bank failure since 2008. Insider’s Ben Bergman explains why the bank collapsed, why the Biden administration intervened, and what this means for the economy writ large.
This episode was produced by Avishay Artsy and Victoria Chamberlin, edited by Matt Collette and Amina Al-Sadi, fact-checked by Laura Bullard and Amanda Lewellyn, engineered by Paul Robert Mounsey and Patrick Boyd, and hosted by Noel King.
Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained
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