Allowing Silicon Valley Bank UK to fail would have caused domino effect, FCA suggests

Nikhil Rathi said the FCA’s team ‘worked overnight and through the weekend’ to understand the impact that SVB UK’s failure might have had. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

Allowing Silicon Valley Bank UK to fail would have caused a domino effect across the City, putting a number of regulated firms at risk of collapse, the boss of the Financial Conduct Authority has said.

The FCA’s chief executive, Nikhil Rathi, outlined the watchdog’s assessments in a letter to MPs on the Treasury committee, as he detailed the hectic weekend of 10 March that started with a bank run on SVB UK’s deposits and ended with authorities facilitating HSBC’s takeover of the bank for just £1.