Warren Pressed SVB’s Former CEO on Dodd-Frank Regulations

(AmericanProsperity.com) – Democratic Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth sent a letter on Tuesday morning to former Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) CEO Greg Becker, where she pressed him for his efforts to roll back banking safeguards in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act, which many Democrats believe played a major role in the collapse of the tech lender.

In her letter to Becker, Warren noted in 2015 he submitted a statement to the Senate Banking Committee, where he called on the House of Representatives to reduce safety standards for banks like the SVB. Warren also said that his testimony to Congress misled lawmakers about the numerous risks that the tech lender was facing at that moment.

She also aimed his compensation before regulators intervened to prevent panic from influencing financial markets, claiming that he and other tech lender executives were doing “fine” while the bank was collapsing, and appeared to cash out right before the final crash.

At the end of her letter, she asked Becker to describe every single detail about his attempt to roll back regulations and to reveal the number of meetings that SVB’s lobbyists had with US lawmakers on this matter. Warren also asked if the American Bankers Association received money from the tech lender to roll back the Dodd-Frank regulations.

Last Friday, the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation decided to shut down the SVB after a massive stock crash of 62 percent in premarket trading because of clients’ withdrawals and fears of a significant banking industry crisis. The tech lender mainly served high-risk startups that were hit by the higher interest rates imposed by the Federal Reserve to contain inflation. While the SVB wasn’t too famous, it was one of the main 20 banks in the United States, with $175 billion in total deposits and $209 billion in total assets by December 2022. Its collapse represented the 2nd biggest bank failure in the country’s history.

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