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- JPMorgan and Citigroup Are Using the Same Accounting Maneuver as Silicon Valley Bank on Hundreds of Billions of Underwater Debt Securities
JPMorgan and Citigroup Are Using the Same Accounting Maneuver as Silicon Valley Bank on Hundreds of Billions of Underwater Debt Securities
by Pam Martens and Russ Martens Wall Street on Parade
As we reported yesterday, Silicon Valley Bank was not even on the “Problem Bank List” maintained by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) when it imploded in a span of 48 hours in March. According to testimony by the Federal Reserve’s Vice Chairman for Supervision, Michael Barr, on March 28 before the Senate Banking Committee, depositors had yanked $42 billion of their deposits from the bank on March 9 and had queued up to grab another $100 billion on March 10 when it was abruptly put into FDIC receivership. Had the FDIC not stepped in, Silicon Valley Bank would have lost 85 percent of its deposits in a two-day stretch.
Two of the key internal problems at Silicon Valley Bank were its large amount of uninsured deposits (which pose a flight risk in times of banking turmoil) and Silicon Valley Bank’s decision to classify 43 percent of its assets to the Held-to-Maturity (HTM) category. Under a highly controversial accounting rule, HTM debt instruments are not marked to market or shown on the balance sheet at fair value, but are instead listed at amortized cost – effectively what was paid for the debt instrument at the time of its purchase.