The U.S. India Strategic and Partnership Forum (USISPF) on March 12, 2023, welcomed the steps taken by Washington to fully preserve the insured and uninsured deposits amid the Silicon Valley Bank collapse, which caused a major crisis for customers.
USISPF chief Mukesh Aghi spoke about the importance of the United States’ involvement in the matter as many US and foreign tech startups as well as members of the venture capital industry were dependent on the Silicon Valley Bank.
“The authorities have done so, realizing that failure to protect the value of deposits would cripple many of these startup firms, resulting in the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs and impacting millions of lives globally. Furthermore, the startup ecosystem in the United States is tightly integrated with the ecosystem globally,” Aghi said in a statement.
“The financial crippling of many startups would reverberate around the world, especially in innovative countries like Ireland, Israel and India. The important measures were to preclude the loss of credibility and trust in Silicon Valley, which if lost, might never be restored and would further erode the United States' position as the global startup leader,” he added.
The California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation closed the 16th largest bank in the United States on March 10. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) was later appointed as its receiver. According to the Federal Reserve, at the end of 2022, the bank had US$209 billion in assets and over US$175 billion in deposits.
The latest crippling of Silicon Valley Bank puts thousands of jobs at risk in the U.S. and in India. The USISPF, which has been working to build strong ties between the United States and India, is focusing “to help ensure the safety of deposits of startups and VCs to be assured of security in a timely and efficient manner.”
