Explore Business Standard
Don’t miss the latest developments in business and finance.
US Fed Rates
The nation's top financial regulator is asserting that Silicon Valley Bank's own management was largely to blame for the bank's failure earlier this month and says the Federal Reserve will review whether a 2018 law that weakened stricter bank rules also contributed to its collapse. SVB's failure is a textbook case of mismanagement, Michael Barr, the Fed's vice chair for supervision, said in written testimony that will be delivered Tuesday at a hearing of the Senate Banking Committee. Barr pointed to the bank's concentrated business model, in which its customers were overwhelmingly venture capital and high-tech firms in Silicon Valley. He also contends that the bank failed to manage the risk of its bond holdings, which lost value as the Fed raised interest rates. Silicon Valley Bank, based in Santa Clara, California, was seized by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. on March 10 in the second-largest bank failure in US history. Late Sunday, the FDIC said that First Citizens Bank, bas
The Federal Reserve pumped up its benchmark interest rate on Wednesday by three-quarters of a point for a fourth straight time but hinted that it could soon reduce the size of its rate hikes. The Fed's move raised its key short-term rate to a range of 3.75 per cent to 4 per cent, its highest level in 15 years. It was the central bank's sixth rate hike this year a streak that has made mortgages and other consumer and business loans increasingly expensive and heightened the risk of a recession. But in a statement, the Fed suggested that it could soon shift to a more deliberate pace of rate increases. It said that in coming months it would consider the cumulative impact of its large rate hikes on the economy. It noted that its rate hikes take time to fully affect growth and inflation. Those words indicated that the Fed's policymakers may think borrowing costs are getting high enough to possibly slow the economy and reduce inflation. If so, that would suggest that they don't need to ..