US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation data include reports of 562 US banks that have failed since 2001. During the 22-year period, there have been only five years when no bank failures were recorded. Eight banks failed between 2018 and 2020, with total assets of US$672 billion. On that scale, Silicon Valley Bank, with assets of US$200 billion, was one of the bigger failures. During the financial crisis, between 2008 and 2012, 465 banks failed, with total assets of around US$700 billion. In a note issued this week, Macquarie Securities said: “Given that the US has around 4700 banks operating under various charters, regulated by different statutes and overlapping supervisory authorities, it is surprising that failures are not more common.” Macquarie said the big question about Silicon Valley Bank, which collapsed last week and was put in the hands of the FDIC, is whether the failure is systemic and the bank represents the canary in the coalmine after more than a year of monetary policy tightening in the US. It put forward several reasons why it does not think SVB’s failure could be the start of a wider crisis. The main one is the bank’s unusual business model and balance sheet structure, as has been widely reported. However, Macquarie said: “It should make the Fed consider whether quantitative tightening, drainage of securities and rising rates are starting to create financial fractures.”