Oklahoma Bankers Association We make bankers better!
The failure of Silicon Valley Bank this weekend has been well covered in the national media. Local media here in Oklahoma might want to “localize” the story and reach out to our member banks for comment.
To assist our banks, we put together some quotes and talking points below they are free to use and share. Also, all our banks are welcome to refer any media inquiries to us here at the OBA, if they prefer to do so, although we encourage our bankers to speak openly and directly to their local media.
Talking points:
• The failure of California’s Silicon Valley Bank on Friday, March 10, is only the first bank failure in all of the United States since the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.
• Our state bankers association has been in touch with a number of sources in Washington, including the regulators, who are closely monitoring the situation, and they are confident this failure is an idiosyncratic event — and there’s no indication of a systemic or liquidity issues.
• “Oklahoma banks are well capitalized and well managed, and the State Banking Department is very confident in our Oklahoma banking system,” said State Banking Commissioner Mick Thompson.
• U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, Janet Yellen, echoed Thompson’s words on a national scale on Friday.
“I have full confidence in banking regulators to take appropriate actions in response and noted that the banking system remains resilient and regulators have effective tools to address this type of event,” she said.
• “The OBA will continue to have open lines of discussion with both state and federal regulators regarding this situation. We are beyond confident, however, the Silicon Valley Bank issue is an extremely isolated incident in California and has little to no direct impact on banks here in Oklahoma,” said OBA President and CEO Adrian Beverage.