In the Press
March 16, 2023

Silicon Valley Bank Collapse Highlights Risk of Exclusive Banking Relationships (Law.com)

Professionals
The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank is spurring a reckoning over the long-standing practice among venture capital-backed companies to keep the vast majority of their cash in a single financial institution, a concentration that leaves most of those deposits uninsured. If a company has signed an exclusivity agreement, it should consider approaching the lender and requesting an amendment, said Samantha Kirby, co-chair of the Banking and Consumer Financial Services practice, to Law.com. She said that companies have a variety of diversification options beyond traditional bank accounts. Those include short-term government debt, including bond ladders, and money market funds, which are widely viewed as extremely low risk and low volatility. But she said companies have no cause to panic. “We’ve only been dealing with this crisis for less than a week,” Kirby said. “There is absolutely time for companies impacted by this to make considered alternate banking arrangements.”