Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen tells senators that the banking system “remains sound” and Americans “can feel confident” about the safety of their deposits…reports Asian Lite News
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen offered firm, upbeat reassurances to rattled bank depositors and investors Thursday, even as American financial institutions and European agencies ordered fresh rescue efforts following the second-largest bank collapse in US history.
Questioned closely, sometimes aggressively, Yellen told senators at a Capitol hearing that the U.S. banking system “remains sound” and Americans “can feel confident” about the safety of their deposits.
Her remarks, against the backdrop of deepening concerns about the health of the global financial system, were an effort to signal to markets that there would be no broader contagion from the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in California and Signature Bank in New York.
By the time her testimony was over, another major institution, First Republic Bank, received an emergency infusion of $30 billion in deposits from 11 banks, according to Treasury. And in Europe hours earlier, Credit Suisse, Switzerland’s second-largest lender, got a promise from the Swiss central bank of a loan of up to 50 billion francs ($54 billion).
Republican senators laid a big part of the blame for the problems on Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration.
“The reckless tax and spend agenda that was forced through Congress” contributed to record high inflation that the Federal Reserve is having to compensate for through increasing interest rates, said Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho. And those surging rates have caused banks — as well as regular citizens — problems.
The Republicans also questioned Biden’s assurances that taxpayers won’t bear the brunt of the commitment to make depositors whole.
Yellen resisted that scenario, though she said, “We certainly need to analyze carefully what happened to trigger these bank failures and examine our rules and supervision” to prevent them from happening again. She defended the government’s argument that taxpayers will not end up paying the cost of protecting uninsured money at Silicon Valley and Signature.
The Treasury secretary was the first administration official to face lawmakers over the decision to protect uninsured money at the two failed regional banks, a move some have criticized as a bank “bailout.”
“The government took decisive and forceful actions to strengthen public confidence” in the U.S. banking system, Yellen testified. “I can reassure the members of the committee that our banking system remains sound, and that Americans can feel confident that their deposits will be there when they need them.”
The week has been a whirlwind for markets globally on worries about banks that may be bending under the weight of the fastest hikes to interest rates in decades, increasures intended to quell rising inflation on consumer goods.
In less than a week, Silicon Valley Bank, based in Santa Clara, California, failed after depositors rushed to withdraw money amid anxiety over the bank’s health. Then, regulators convened over the weekend and announced that New York-based Signature Bank also failed. They said that all depositors, including those holding uninsured funds exceeding $250,000, would be protected by federal deposit insurance.
The Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission have since launched investigations into the Silicon Valley Bank collapse, and President Joe Biden has called on Congress to strengthen rules on regional banks.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday, “There are things that we can do in the administration, but in order to really deal with this issue we have to act. Congress needs to act.”
Thursday’s hearing, originally scheduled to address Biden’s budget proposa for the fiscal year beginning next October, came after the sudden collapse of Silicon Valley, the nation’s 16th-biggest bank and a go-to financial institution for tech entrepreneurs. While lawmakers questioned Yellen on the federal deficit and upcoming debt ceiling negotiations, many focused instead on the bank failures and who was to blame.
Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho, the committee’s top Republican, said, “I’m concerned about the precedent of guaranteeing all deposits,” calling the federal rescue action a “moral hazard.”
“We’re not going to do that again,” she said, referring to the government’s response to the 2008 financial crisis, which led to massive government rescues for large U.S. banks.
Yellen, a former Federal Reserve chair and past president of the San Francisco Federal Reserve during the 2008 financial crisis, was a leading figure in the resolution this past weekend, which was engineered to prevent a wider systemic banking problem.
“This week’s actions demonstrate our resolute commitment to ensure that depositors’ savings remain safe,” she said.
Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, compared the banks’ collapse to rail industry deregulation lobbying that Democrats say contributed to the East Palestine train derailment that rocked an Ohio community. “We see aggressive lobbying like this from banks as well,” he said.
In Europe, troubles at Credit Suisse deepened concerns about the global financial system.