SVB and First Republic CEOs lobbied for weaker financial supervision to prevent their banks from entering the crisis.
The heads of both Silicon Valley Bank and First Republic Bank had attempted to impact the U.S.
government to adopt a softer regulatory approach to the financial sector in the months before last week's crisis,
as lawmakers questioned whether recent regulatory easing had failed the banks. The chances are high.
On Jan. 23, First Republic CEO Mike Roffler sent a letter to both the Federal Reserve and the Federal
Deposit Insurance Company opposing a proposal to require smaller lenders to follow similar rules as systemically important banks, The Information reported.
In his letter, Roffler wrote, "such requirements should apply only to large, interconnected financial institutions
whose failure could pose a systemic risk to the financial stability of the United States."
First Republic Bank "did not pose the same, if any, risk to financial stability," Roffler wrote.
Roffler's view was proven wrong in January after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.
Shares of First Republic Bank tumbled during the first day of trading on Monday, after the Federal Reserve stepped in to fully protect Silicon Valley, bank depositors.
Then, on Wednesday, S&P Global Ratings and Fitch Ratings both downgraded First Republic Bank to junk status, citing the risk of deposit outflows and liquidity losses.
On Thursday, eleven significant banks, including JPMorgan, Citigroup, and Bank of America, consented to store $30 billion in First Republic Bank.
The banks have pledged to keep the money there for at least 120 days, Bloomberg reported, giving time to either bail out First Republic Bank or pursue other options.
Baker has been part of the leadership of two lobbying organizations representing the tech sector, served as chairman of TechNet until January 2023,
and also sits on the executive board of the Silicon Valley Initiative Gathering, reports CNBC.
TechNet is a public organization of significant tech Presidents, while the Silicon Valley Administration Gathering centers around strategy in Silicon Valley.
According to CNBC, Technet focused its attention on a specific section of the Dodd-Frank Act that
requires financial institutions to release transaction data and other financial information to customers.
The Purchaser Monetary Security Department is still during the time spent composing those guidelines.
Neither Technet nor Silicon Valley Authority Gathering promptly answered Fortune's solicitation for input.
A Technet representative let CNBC know that the gathering's campaigning on Dodd-Plain was
"a customer information protection issue connected with the CFPB's reported notification of proposed rulemaking on information security, one of the business' top strategy issues,"
while a Silicon Valley initiative gathering representative told CNBC Affirmed that SVB chiefs were important for a 2017 designation to bring down corporate duty rates.
Bread cook has long called for less oversight of somewhat little banks like Silicon Valley Bank.
In 2015, Cook approached the US to lift its edge for believing a bank to be foundationally significant and consequently dependent upon stricter capital necessities.
Too low a threshold "suffocates our ability to extend credit to our clients," he told Congress in 2015.
The United States raised the threshold from $50 billion to $250 billion in 2018. According to the FDIC, Silicon Valley Bank's assets at the end of 2022 are $209 billion.
Last Friday, the FDIC acquired Silicon Valley Bank after a bank run, spurred by the company's admission that it needs to raise capital,
both by selling bonds at a loss and planning to sell shares.
On Sunday, the US government announced that it had taken over Signature Bank of New York and would fully protect both its and SVB's depositors.
Some US lawmakers are already blaming banking leaders for weakening financial regulation and thus fueling the current crisis.
In an opinion piece Monday for The New York Times, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) argued that
banking executives "spent millions to defeat it, and when they lost, spent millions more to undermine it."
"Had Congress and the Federal Reserve not reintroduced tighter oversight,
SVB and Signature would have been subject to strong liquidity and capital requirements to withstand financial shocks," Warren wrote.