In the world of finance, the Federal Reserve (Fed) held an emergency meeting on Monday, March 13th, to review the supervision of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) after the bank filed for bankruptcy on March 10th. Meanwhile, BlackRock Investment Institute (BII), the research institute of the world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock, predicted that the Fed will continue to raise interest rates, despite the SVB collapse.
In the US, Silicon Valley Bank CEO Tim Mayopolos informed customers that the bank was open and operating normally after the US Treasury assured clients that they had access to their deposits starting on March 13th. Eurozone banks were unaffected by the bankruptcy of SVB, according to Eurozone Finance Minister Pascal Donoho.
Moving to Asia, China will start issuing visas to foreign tourists as it begins to reopen the country after strict COVID-19 containment measures. The Philippines posted its largest trade deficit in five months, which could put pressure on the Philippine peso in the short term. Moody’s credit rating agency downgraded Signature Bank’s rating to “C” (junk) after the bank was suddenly ordered to close last weekend.
In politics, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan stated that President Joe Biden plans to have a phone conversation with Chinese President Xi Jinping after China’s annual legislative meeting. Volkswagen announced plans to invest 180 billion euros ($1926 billion) in electrification and digitalization between 2023 and 2027. Meanwhile, China is considering raising its retirement age to cope with an aging population.
Finally, a joint venture in Singapore believes that the collapse of SVB is unlikely to impact tech start-up funding in Southeast Asia.