London, 12 Mar: Britain’s technology and life sciences sectors are at “serious risk” following the closure of the Silicon Valley Bank, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt warned on Sunday.
\nThe California-based SVB bank, which was closed by US authorities on Friday, manages the money of some of the UK’s most promising businesses, Hunt said.
\n“There is a serious risk to our technology and life sciences sectors, many of whom bank with this bank,” Hunt said in an interview with British television channel Sky News.
\n“Most people won’t have heard of the Silicon Valley Bank but it happens to look after the money of some of our most promising and exciting businesses.”
\nThe bank is expected to reopen on Monday under a new name with the US deposit guarantee agency, the FDIC, taking control.
\nHunt said the governor of the Bank of England had made it “very clear” that there was no systemic risk to the UK’s financial system due to the SVB’s collapse.
\nThe government would bring forward plans “very soon” to ensure people are able to meet their cash flow requirements and pay staff.
\nIt would also put a longer-term solution in place to minimise or completely avoid losses to British companies, he added.
\nThe British Treasury said Saturday that the problems of the failed SVB bank were “specific to the firm” and had no “implications for other banks operating in the UK”.
\nThe bank failed after its customers, mainly from the tech sector, made massive withdrawals, and after its latest attempt to raise new money proved unsuccessful.
\nLittle known to the general public, SVB specialised in financing start-ups and had become the 16th-largest US bank by assets.
\nIts demise is not only the largest bank failure since Washington Mutual in 2008, but also the second-largest retail bank failure in the US.
\nThe Bank of England said it intended to pursue insolvency with regards to the bank’s British subsidiary.
\n“It was looking inevitable that the dramatic loss of confidence in SVB would also sweep its UK arm into insolvency,” said Susannah Streeter of financial firm Hargreaves Lansdown.
\n“The run on the US bank spooked customers banking with the British subsidiary, despite protestations that it was ring-fenced from its parent,” she added.
\nSky News reported that the Bank of London, which launched just two years ago, is among those mulling a bid for SVB’s British arm. AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
London, 12 Mar: Britain’s technology and life sciences sectors are at “serious risk” following the closure of the Silicon Valley Bank, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt warned on Sunday. The California-based SVB bank, which was closed by US authorities on Friday, manages the money of some of the UK’s most promising businesses, Hunt said. “There is a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-212667","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212667\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}