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President Joe Biden told Americans to have confidence in the nation's financial systems amid growing fear brought on by the recent collapse of two banks.
“Americans can have confidence that the banking system is safe,” Biden said on Monday (March 13) via the Associated Press. “Your deposits will be there when you need them.”
The Silicon Valley Bank was closed by U.S. regulators on Friday (March 10) following a traditional bank run in which depositors rushed to withdraw all of their funds, marking the second largest bank failure in U.S. history, following only the failure of Washington Mutual in 2008. The New York-based Signature bank also failed shortly after, according to regulators, in what the AP referred to as "a sign of fast financial bleeding was occurring."
Biden, who spoke from the Roosevelt Room of the White House just prior to U.S. markets opening on Monday, as well as a planned visit to the West Coast, said he intended to hold those responsible and called for more oversight and regulation into larger American banks, promising no loses would be made up taxpayers in relation to the bank collapses. Both U.S. and British government officials put major efforts in combatting a potential banking crisis over the weekend.
U.S. regulators worked to find a buyer for Silicon Valley Bank after it had lost more than $200 billion in assets and catered to businesses. Officials assured all of the bank's customers that they'd be able to access their money on Monday, despite failed efforts over the weekend.
The Bank of England and U.K. Treasury announced they'd facilitated the sale of HSBC, the London-based subsidiary of Silicon Valley Bank and the largest bank in Europe, in an effort to secure 6.7 billion pounds ($8.1 billion) of deposits amid the issues on Monday.