Fed criticized for missing red flags before bank collapse

WASHINGTON >> The Federal Reserve is facing stinging criticism for missing what observers say were clear signs that Silicon Valley Bank was at high risk of collapsing into the secondlargest bank failure in U.S. history.

Critics point to many red flags surrounding the bank, including its rapid growth since the pandemic, its unusually high level of uninsured deposits and its many investments in long-term government bonds and mortgagebacked securities, which tumbled in value as interest rates rose.

“It's inexplicable how the Federal Reserve supervisors could not see this clear threat to the safety and soundness of banks and to financial stability,” said Dennis Kelleher, chief executive of Better Markets, an advocacy group.

Wall Street traders and industry analysts “have been publicly screaming about these very issues for many, many months going back to last fall,” Kelleher added.

The Fed was the primary federal supervisor of the bank based in Santa Clara, California, that failed last week. The bank was also overseen by the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation.

Now the consequences of the fall of Silicon Valley Bank, along with New York-based Signature Bank, which failed over the weekend, are complicating the Fed's upcoming decisions about how high to raise its benchmark interest rate in the fight against chronically high inflation.

Many economists say the central bank would likely have raised rates by an aggressive half-point next week at its meeting, which would amount to a step up in its inflation fight, after the Fed implemented a quarter-point hike in February. Its rate currently stands at about 4.6%, the highest level in 15 years.

Last week, many economists suggested that Fed policymakers would raise their projection for future rates next week to 5.6%. Now it's suddenly unclear how many additional rate increases the Fed will forecast.

With the collapse of the two large banks fueling anxiety about other regional banks, the Fed may focus more on boosting confidence in the financial system than on its longterm drive to tame inflation.

The latest government report on inflation, released Tuesday, shows that price increases remain far higher than the Fed prefers, putting Chair Jerome Powell in a tougher spot. Core prices, which exclude volatile food and energy costs and are seen as a better gauge of longerrun inflation, jumped 0.5% from January to February — the most since September. That is far higher than is consistent with the Fed's 2% annual target.

“Absent the fallout from the bank failure, it may have been a close call, but I think it would have tipped them towards a half-point (rate hike) at this meeting,” said Kathy Bostjancic, chief economist at Nationwide.

On Monday, Powell announced that the Fed would review its supervision of Silicon Valley to understand how it might have better managed its regulation of the bank. The review will be conducted by Michael Barr, the Fed vice chair who oversees bank oversight, and will be publicly released May 1.