Former SVB chief says the Fed never discussed interest rate risk with him

The former head of Silicon Valley Bank testified on Wednesday that Federal Reserve officials never raised concerns about the bank’s risk from rising interest rates with him, even though that weakness doomed the bank.

Greg Becker, who spent three decades with SVB and was CEO for the past 12 years, fielded questions about how the bank ended up collapsing so quickly. The Fed has said that SVB leadership failed to manage basic interest rate and liquidity risk. The Fed has said supervisors did fail to take forceful enough action to curb risks in the lead-up to the failure.

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Rep. Andy Barr (R-KY) began questioning in the hearing by probing Becker about how involved the Fed was in guiding the bank through the Fed’s historic efforts over the past two years to raise interest rates to limit inflation. He emphasized just how quickly the Fed raised rates over the past year or so — 5 percentage points in 13 months — and questioned Becker about how involved regional Fed officials, which oversaw SVB, were in highlighting the risk to SVB.

Barr asked if bank supervisors at the San Francisco Fed showed any extra attention to interest rate risk issues, and if so, when they began to show that attention.

“Chairman Barr, to my memory, the rapid rise in interest rates … that topic coming up — I don’t remember that coming up to the best of my recollection,” the former CEO responded.

“So, you’re telling me that as the San Francisco Fed, 20 bank examiners in your bank every day, not once in the last year do you remember any of those bank examiners discussing interest rate sensitivity with you?” Barr asked.

“With me — again, my memory is no — it could have happened with our Treasury team or our [chief financial officer], but I don’t remember having a direct conversation about that,” Becker acknowledged.

Barr also pointed out that SVB didn’t have a dedicated chief risk officer for eight months leading up to its failure. The congressman said a chief risk officer would have been a useful addition to the management team. He asked what conversations Becker had with the Fed about having someone in that role and whether officials voiced any concerns about the vacancy or ask that SVB take action to fill the position.

Becker said that, toward the end of 2021 and the beginning of last year, SVB’s board of directors and Fed regulators provided feedback about the need for the bank to enhance its chief risk officer position, particularly as SVB started to approach $250 billion in assets.

He said SVB took the feedback “very strongly,” knowing that it takes a while to fill such a senior position. Becker said the bank took two actions that were communicated to the Fed to ensure there weren’t gaps during that period of time.

First, SVB created an office of the chief risk officer featuring a leadership team and a risk team, along with new hires who had experience at big financial institutions. Becker said they reported to him and the chairperson of SVB’s risk committee. Secondly, he said SVB kept its existing chief risk officer onboard as a consultant for several months until a new chief risk officer was hired last October.

Barr asked whether the Fed expressed any concern that despite the creation of an office, there was not a position filled.

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“They did not,” Becker responded.

Becker’s much-anticipated testimony comes about two months after SVB’s failure, which led to the collapse of other banks and general turmoil in the banking system. Signature Bank and First Horizon Bank were other casualties of the collapse, and former top executives at those banks were also present during Wednesday’s hearing.