Irish Examiner view: Familiarity with financial failure

Silicon Valley Bank collapse

Some observers have linked the SVB collapse to looser regulation introduced under former US president Donald Trump. Picture: AP Photo/Jeff Chiu

The news drifting across to us from California of the failure of Silicon Valley Bank seems remote at first. After all, the sudden collapse of a financial institution most of us have never heard of — and which dealt primarily with a its own specific constituency, the tech sector on the US west coast — could surely have little impact on these shores.

However, if the great crash of 2008 taught us anything it was the harsh lesson that the fallout from the remotest financial catastrophes can resonate close to home. Global banking and finance is a fluid, interdependent area, and the collapse of SVB has already had an impact here. The share price of AIB and Bank of Ireland dropped by about 7%, reflecting a general European unease with the news.