You may or may not be aware that our US Bank was Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), which failed a couple of weeks ago.

Fortunately, all our funds deposited there were insured.

We also have a USD denominated bank account with another bank, and we directed customers to divert their payments there from the following Monday onwards.

Those of our customers who pay with paper cheques were advised to send them to our Valencia office.

Though this is a dramatic event, it turns out that it had minimal impact on us.

Following SVB’s collapse, the Federal authorities transferred all the bank’s deposits and loans to a bridge bank.

We have been receiving banking services from this bridge bank for quite a few days now though international transfers only became operational over this week.

Our NZ bank, Westpac, has been supportive and expanded our line of credit to ensure we get through all these transitions without any trouble.

Earlier this week, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) announced that a North Carolina bank, First Citizens, has purchased SVB’s assets, deposits and loans.  After the transaction is complete, FCB will be slightly bigger than SVB before it fell.

FCB say that from last Monday (UST), SVB will begin trading as “Silicon Valley Bank, a division of First Citizen Bank”.

It looks like the combined bank will be stronger than the original SVB as there is greater diversity among the customers.

We will continue to maintain our accounts with the new SVB but we will be opening other accounts with another yet to be finalized bank, as we think this is a prudent thing to do. 

Tony Kan
Executive Chair
[email protected]