By Invitation | Bank runs

Tony Yates considers policy after Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse

The former adviser to the Bank of England on the oddities of SVB’s depositors 

Image: Dan Williams

“SVB COMMITTED one of the most elementary errors in banking: borrowing money in the short term and investing in the long term.” This tweet was written on March 13th by Larry Summers about the recent collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). However, as the former US treasury secretary understands as well as anyone, borrowing short and lending long—so-called maturity transformation—is both the big problem with banking and the whole point of it. It’s a balancing act that SVB got catastrophically wrong.

From the March 18th 2023 edition

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Explore the edition

Camille Grand on why Ukraine’s future turns on security guarantees

A 20,000-strong European force would be a lot more potent with an American backstop, says the former NATO official

Alex Wang on why China can’t be allowed to dominate AI-based warfare

As the “agentic” age begins, democracies can take inspiration from the past, writes the tech boss


It’s time to treat sexual violence in war as torture, writes a UN rapporteur 

Alice Edwards argues that such crimes are increasingly part of military strategy


Rishi Sunak on why Ukraine should get Russia’s frozen assets, not just the interest on them

Worries that it could rock allies’ financial systems are overdone, says Britain’s former leader

Donald Trump should not replace us with his stooges, warns a fired inspector-general

Mark Greenblatt on the dangers America will face if oversight officials lose their independence

The transatlantic relationship is crumbling, says an ex-head of NATO

Anders Fogh Rasmussen argues that Europe must accept it may be alone—and spend accordingly