Yellen says banking system ‘remains sound’
WASHINGTON – Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is trying to project calm after regional bank failures, saying on Tuesday that the U.S. banking system is “sound” but additional rescue arrangements “could be warranted” if any new failures at smaller institutions pose a risk to financial stability.
Yellen, who made her remarks at the American Bankers Association, said that overall “the situation is stabilizing.”
“And the U.S. banking system remains sound,” Yellen said.
Yellen’s remarks come after a series of troubling bank developments this month.
Silicon Valley Bank, based in Santa Clara, California, failed March 10 after depositors rushed to withdraw money amid anxiety over the bank’s health. It was the second-largest bank collapse in U.S. history. Regulators convened over the following weekend and announced that New York-based Signature Bank also had failed. They said all depositors at both banks, including those holding uninsured funds – those exceeding $250,000 – would be protected by federal deposit insurance.
And last week a third bank, San Francisco-based First Republic Bank, was fortified by $30 billion in funds raised by 11 of the biggest U.S. banks in an attempt to prevent it from collapsing.
The government is now determined to restore public confidence in the banking system and to prevent any more turmoil. The Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission have launched investigations into the Silicon Valley Bank collapse, and President Joe Biden has called on Congress to strengthen rules on regional banks and to impose tougher penalties on executives of failed banks.
Yellen said the government’s intervention was necessary to “protect the broader banking system” and more rescue efforts could be necessary.
Yellen faced the Senate Finance
Committee last week and offered upbeat reassurances to rattled bank depositors and investors that the U.S. banking system “remains sound” and Americans “can feel confident” about the safety of their deposits.
She will appear in front of congressional panels twice more this week, in the Senate and the House, and will inevitably face more questions about the nature of the bank failures and the government’s effort to quell them.
Democratic lawmakers and some economists say a 2018 rollback of portions of a far-reaching 2010 law intended to prevent a future financial crisis was a primary cause of the institutional failures.
Ahead of Yellen’s speech, at a panel discussing the state of the banking system, Scott Anderson, president of Zions Bank, said he doesn’t think the 2018 rollback is related to the bank failures.
“Congress needs to be careful,” Anderson said. “They need to look at what happened . ... But they shouldn’t jump to any immediate conclusions. I don’t think these failures show that there’s any problem within the banking regulations that we have now.”