Last year marked a tumultuous period for the US banking industry, with the collapse of several of its major lenders reverberating throughout the global financial system. The closure of Silicon Valley Bank in March, ranked as the country’s 15th largest lender by assets in the 2022 rankings, became the largest US banking failure since Washington Mutual’s demise during the 2008 financial crisis, which followed the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy.
Four more US regional lenders subsequently failed, with Signature Bank collapsing just days later, followed by First Republic Bank in May, Heartland TriState Bank in July and Citizens Bank of Sac City in November. The combined assets of the failed banks totalled around $540bn, surpassing previous records set in 1984 and 2008.
