The Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs will hold a series of hearings on the recent collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.
“It is critical that we get to the bottom of how Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank collapsed so that we can maintain a strong banking system, protect Americans’ hard-earned money, and hold those responsible accountable, including the CEOs,” U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), the chair of the committee, said. “The American public deserves answers, which is why I am calling on our financial regulators to testify before the Banking and Housing Committee at a hearing on March 28. My job is oversight, and we need to begin these hearings to understand these bank failures and the next steps to make sure this never happens again.”
The first hearing will feature Martin Gruenberg, chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Michael Barr, vice chair of supervision at the Federal Reserve, and Nellie Liang, undersecretary for domestic finance at the U.S. Treasury Department.
Last week, Brown sent a letter to the financial regulators requesting a full review of the Silicon Valley Bank collapse.
“In the course of the reviews and resolutions of these bank failures, I urge you to: Consider the magnitude of the banks’ uninsured deposits and the role that social media-led coordination among customers played in causing or accelerating the failures; Identify and close regulatory gaps, shortfalls, or failures by state or federal regulators that contributed to the banks’ failures, including with respect to capital, liquidity, stress testing, concentration risk, and risk management; Hold those responsible for these bank failures accountable for their actions, including by clawing back executive bonuses and compensation and taking other appropriate regulatory actions to hold these banks’ executives accountable,” Brown wrote in the letter.
He also called upon regulators to strengthen the guardrails for banks to prevent failures and mitigate panic risks to protect consumers and small businesses and preserve small banks and credit unions.