Case 15Funding LiquidityFailure

Silicon Valley Bank

SVB Financial Group / Silicon Valley Bank · 2019–2023

What measured balance-sheet, liquidity and funding actions should the joint Board Risk and Finance Committee authorize after the first-quarter filing?

At the decision boundary

SVB funding, liquidity and interest-rate resilience at May 9, 2022

Decision time
May 9, 2022
Knowledge cutoff
May 9, 2022
Recommended path
Authorize staged hedging, selected rebalancing, tested liquidity and funding-diversification gates; review nonparallel rate and correlated runoff scenarios monthly and stop execution that would breach approved capital limits.
Confidence
High

What happened

No specific May 9, 2022 joint-committee action is established by the captured public record; later evidence shows exposure persisted, March 8 actions were announced, a run followed and the bank entered receivership.

Public evidence does not establish the exact May 9 board action. Later official reviews identify management and supervisory weaknesses, but causal weights remain bounded and the Part A recommendation cannot be treated as an observed decision.

Case inventory

What is inside

18source records
9financial tables
20material claims
3candidate rules

Transfer with care

Rule hypotheses from this case

All rule hypotheses →
Candidatemoderate confidence

rule.svb.deposit-correlation

Segment runoff by controller, channel and network; stress correlated cohorts without assuming every uninsured dollar exits immediately.

Insurance status affects incentive, while common liquidity shocks and communication channels affect correlation and speed.

Candidatehigh confidence

rule.svb.operational-liquidity

Calculate time-to-cash after haircuts, encumbrance, documentation, settlement and operational readiness; test the channels.

Nominal capacity can fail to become usable cash at the speed of a run.

Candidatehigh confidence

rule.svb.layered-causality

Model structural vulnerability, trigger, amplification and response as separate causal layers and preserve rival hypotheses.

A visible last event may accelerate failure without creating the balance-sheet and funding fragility that made failure possible.