What’s in a name?  Ask customers of Mumbai-based bank who panicked at SVB collapse
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What’s in a name?  Ask customers of Mumbai-based bank who panicked at SVB collapse

SVC Co-operative Bank issued a statement Sunday asking customers to not heed to 'baseless rumours', adding it reserves right to take legal action against those tarnishing its brand image.

   
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Silicon Valley Bank, in New York City | Photo Credit: Thomson Reuters

New Delhi: In an interesting twist, shock waves from US-based commercial lender Silicon Valley Bank’s (SVB) collapse Friday were felt in distant Mumbai, as customers of a similar sounding SVC Co-operative Bank Ltd. were left apprehensive about the safety of their deposits.

In an effort to quell their fears, the Mumbai-based bank issued a statement Sunday, stating that it is “completely unrelated” to the California-based SVB.

 

The SVC bank reportedly received a flurry of questions from customers on social media platforms regarding the safety of their deposits.

 

Reassuring them, the 116-year-old bank said it has proven ”robust” and “strong fundamentals” and requested its customers not to pay heed to “baseless rumours” about both the banks having a similar name.

The bank added that it reserves the right to take legal action on “rumour-mongers” for tarnishing its brand image.

The SVB, a four-year-old US bank, collapsed Friday making it the second-biggest bank failure since the 2008 financial crisis. US regulators have shuttered SVB and taken control of its deposits. The move came after a dramatic 48 hours that saw the high-tech lender’s share price plummet amid a run-on deposit by concerned customers.

Nearly $175 billion of the bank’s customer deposits are now under the control of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, or FDIC, which has assured the depositors full access to their insured deposits after all the branches of the bank open on Monday morning, according to NDTV.

(Edited by Smriti Sinha)


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