SVB's Misfortune: A Reminder of the Need for Banking Regulations
In 2021, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) experienced a huge influx in deposits, jumping from $61.76bn at the end of 2019 to $189.20bn at the end of 2021. With such a large increase in funds, SVB was unable to grow its loan book fast enough to generate the yield they wanted on this capital. As a result, they invested in mortgage-backed securities (MBS) with these deposits for their hold-to-maturity (HTM) portfolio and got an average yield of 1.56%.