Michael S. Barr

SVB failed because of a textbook case of mismanagement by the bank and that Federal Reserve supervisors failed to take forceful enough action.

I have said repeatedly that banks, according to our rules, are well-capitalized today. Our banking system is sound and resilient.

The responsibility of bank management is to take the monetary policy, the interest rate world around it, and to respond with appropriate risk metrics, and they didn't do that.

The report that we released suggests that both the Board in Washington and the San Francisco Fed did not hold up the bank with enough pressure.

What we found is that supervisors were essentially too timid and too slow to raise those standards in a timely enough way.

The bank did respond to regulator citations but those responses were insufficient.

Yes, I do think that bank mismanagement was at the core of this.

The obligation, obviously, is on Congress and the Executive Branch to work out an arrangement on the debt ceiling to raise it.

I think the steps that we took together to stabilize the economy and provide public confidence in the banking system are of assistance to low- and moderate-income households and to all Americans around the country.

It was our judgment collectively on the Federal Reserve Board, and an unanimous decision of the FDIC and the Treasury Secretary, that we needed to do that to protect contagion from infecting healthy banks in the system.

I share your outrage about it. I just want to make sure we get to the facts.

I think we need to take a good, hard look inside at the Federal Reserve, at our supervision, at our regulation.