🔊 Sound up for live interview at 10:05 with Zions Bankcorporation’s Chairman and CEO, Harris Simmons. 👇
 

 

SALT LAKE CITY — Zions Bank reached out to their clients on Monday to reassure them in light of two recent bank failures.

Recently, the Silicon Valley Bank collapsed due to not having enough funds to pay depositors, resulting in the closure of the bank. Shortly after, Signature Bank, in New York City also closed its doors.

“As you undoubtedly know, the past few days have been stressful and highly eventful in the banking world,” began Zions Bank’s statement to its customers. 

“The failure of two large banks, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) in Santa Clara, California, and Signature Bank, in New York City, have rattled the markets as well as many people’s nerves,” the statement continued. 

Zions wrote that both banks have characteristics that made them unstable including rising interest rates.

Setting the bank apart

Additionally, one thing that leaders at Zions Bank say sets them apart is their deposits.

In comparison, Zions holds depositors’ money in 1.4 million accounts. Silicon Valley Bank was about 22 times the size of the average balance in a Zions account. 

According to the statement from Zions Bank, these accounts “overwhelmingly tend to be smaller in size and operational in nature.”

Consequently,  Silicon Valley Bank is allegedly more susceptible to outflows they experienced last week. 

President and CEO of Zions Bank, Scott Anderson President turned consumers’ attention to an analyst at Bloomberg. According to Anderson, the analyst wrote, “In the wake of SVB and Signature’s swift demise, it’s important to view deposit granularity, or having lower balances per deposit, as a sign of more funding stability, with Zions and Regions leading peers on this measure.”

Anderson went on highlight Zions’ available liquidity. More specifically, he said the bank has access to tens of billions of dollars of readily available with no need to sell securities. 

Finally, Anderson thanked those who Bank with Zions Bank saying, “We appreciate the longstanding relationships we’ve built with such a large number of families, small and medium-sized businesses, and many others like you over our 150-year history.  

Related reading:

• Biden says US banking system is safe after Silicon Valley Bank collapse
• Local start ups experience ‘whiplash’ of emotions with SVB collapse