[sithlord]

My guess ( I havn't looked at is the last ones ) is that the majority of deposits were well under 250k, and that hundreds of thousands of jobs weren't on the line.

Also, you are talking about a major banking collapse if people start thinking that their deposits aren't safe. (a lot of people will start pulling money, even if under 250k). There are so many irrational people out there...

edit: I guess somewhere in what I said was confusing, I was referring to past fails where most deposits were likely well under the 250k. NOT SVB where the vast majority were well above that threshold.

[waboremo]

BusinessInsider[1] has a different view:

>About 37,000 customers accounted for nearly $157 billion or 74% of the bank's assets with an average account size of over $4 million

So it seems the opposite is almost true, because the accounts are valued so high with generally more flexible account holders, they're able to move swiftly

[1]: https://www.businessinsider.com/how-silicon-valley-bank-impl...

[giaour]

GP is talking about the majority of accounts, and the number you cite is a percentage of funds. If 98 people have an account with $1 in it and one person has an account with $102, then 51% of the bank's assets are in accounts > $100, and the vast majority of accounts have $1.

[waboremo]

What makes you think the majority of accounts would operate that way? Seems ridiculous considering it's SVB, not your average bank.

[giaour]

I would expect larger accounts to make the percentage of deposits in accounts with > $250K to be higher than the percentage of accounts with > $250K because that's how numbers work.

[ericmay]

Average or median?

[zamfi]

No one here actually reading the thread, all assuming you’re talking about SVB and not (as the parent says) previous bank failures.

To address your actual point: we don’t know whether WaMu depositors had a lot in uninsured accounts, probably not as much as SVB, but we do know that all depositors were made whole when JP Morgan Chase bought the bank — from assets WaMu already had, not the FDIC’s pool. Even senior creditors received some amount back!

[IG_Semmelweiss]

Thats not true. It was said elsewhere in HN thread and also in several articles online.

The majority of avg deposits were NOT < 250K.

Only 3-7% of SVB accounts under FDIC limits.

Edit: corrected to have specific languange

[giaour]

Where did the 3-7% of accounts number come from?

According to [0], regulatory filings disclosed that 85% of deposits (not accounts) were uninsured.

[0]: https://time.com/6262009/silicon-valley-bank-deposit-insuran...

[IG_Semmelweiss]

their 12/31 10k.

no one knows what it was as of 3.10.23

[bostik]

I'm going to copy-paste a good chunk of my answer from an earlier thread. (Original: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35101797) - the article "The Demise of Silicon Valley Bank" wasn't on the front page long, probably because it was slightly dry and didn't provide any new hot take angles. But it did give out actual numbers:

> As at the end of 2022, it had 37,466 deposit customers, each holding in excess of $250,000 per account -- and -- The bank does have another 106,420 customers whose accounts are fully insured but they only control $4.8 billion of deposits

So SVB had only about ~150k banking customers. And of those, less than 40k are actually affected by this debacle.

-- -- -- --

The numbers are being mixed up, it feels. Only 3% of total deposits are covered witn the guaranteed FDIC insurance. The rest are spread across less than 40k depositors. And the average (not median, but plain mathematical average) amount on those accounts appears to be $4M.

[rtpg]

I think this is referring to other banks, not SVB’s special case.

[sithlord]

I am stating for prior fails, the number from SVB was that only ~3% were insured. Which was my point, that in the past, there wern't as many e(a)ffected (and they (uninsured) could have received special treatment for all I know).

[wheelerof4te]

Hey, the FDIC coould raise the limit to, say, 10 million, and just let the FED reserve print out the moneys to everyone.

Not much different than what the US government is already doing. Reached the debt limit? Just raise it again, lol.

/s

[Mistletoe]

With this place the majority were over 250k. Something like 97% or something. It was a big bank for businesses. Why they were bizarrely keeping such large sums in one bank account I don’t understand. Roku had almost $500 million there.

[rapsey]

SVB claimed the money is in treasury bills not just cash in the account. Which is a completely sensible place to put it.

[tsimionescu]

Apparently much of the money was in long-term treasury bills, which is only perfectly sensible if you believe you will not have to access that money for 5-10 years.

[chipgap98]

No it isn’t. You’re exposing yourself to interest rate risk when doing that

[ehzy]

Not in any meaningful sense if you are only looking to park the money safely and hold to maturity.

Buying 3 month T bills won't pay much, but it will pay more than the interest SVB pays on your checking account balance and importantly is backed by the full faith and credit of the us govt.

[Kephael]

Yeah, you can short eurodollars or maybe something else to hedge risk. At a certain point, you need to be sophisticated enough to manage your funds.

[chipgap98]

> is that the majority of deposits were well under 250k

What gives you that indication? The bank specialized in working with startups, most of whom have more than $250k in the bank

[QuantumSeed]

S&P Global Market Intelligence reports that as of Dec 31, 2022, 97% of Silicon Valley Bank's deposit accounts exceeded the $250,000 insurance cap.

[orwin]

He wasn't talking about SVB but the other 500+ small banks that failed in the last 15 years.

[lkschubert8]

I can't seem to find it now, but either here or on reddit someone had numbers from a filling indicating ~8% of accounts were below 250k.