The takeover by banking regulators this month of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank has conjured up the ghost of the Great Recession.
Of the 523 bank failures since 2008, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. figures show, only one was larger than either Silicon Valley Bank or Signature Bank. That would be Washington Mutual Bank, which had $307 billion in assets, while Silicon Valley Bank had $209 billion and Signature Bank had $110.4 billion. The fourth-largest failure since September 2008 is not even close. Montgomery, Alabama-based Colonial Bank failed in August 2009 with $25 billion in assets, according to FDIC data.
In fact, Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank’s combined assets of $319.4 billion are nearly equal to the assets of the 523 failed banks that were ranked behind the collapse of Washington Mutual. Together those banks had $363 billion in assets.
