My SVB experience:
6 months ago, we realized we were spending a lot of money on wire transfers. Five figs/year. Being a responsible biz, we started looking into ways to cut the expense.
3 months ago, we reached out to an old contact at SVB to explore a relationship. They offered a beefy rate on savings balance plus free wires. We were happy and took it.
Last month, we completed opening accounts and moved 35% of our savings balance to them. We had plans to move more, but our current bank got wind of it, and matched the wire pricing which saved us a lot of administrative work. So we put moving on hold for a bit, although we planned to eventually move our full savings to SVB for interest rates, and keep our operating accounts where they were since wires were no longer an issue.
Last night, I heard about the SVB drama, and immediately tried to transfer money out. That wire is still listed as pending even now. Also tried to do an internal transfer between entities within SVB, and that is also stuck "im progress" and never went through.
This morning I woke up early and spent almost 4 hours trying to get through to them on the phone. Their lines were down, fast busy, then when I finally got into the PBX system, I was on hold for hours. Even called in from two different lines, no one outside of card services would pickup. When I got through, it was only to someone on their credit card side, where I'd ask for a transfer.
There was a pretty rad moment of levity that occurred during one of the calls. The card services lady picked up and apologized for the long holds.
"Sorry for the long hold. Our website is having some issues and our phones are going crazy because of it."
"That's not why your phones are going crazy. Look at the news. SVB is going out of business right now. Transfer me to SMB banking support please now"
"Uhh... Ohhh... let me try to transfer you to banking support"
Another long hold with no answer occurred during which I got the news alert about SVB being shut down by Cali Bank Regulators and the FDIC.
What a day.
We had six figures there and it was above the FDIC limit. We'll be OK, it was savings, not operating capital, and we'll probably get our money back or at minimum a good sized chunk of it.
I worry about other businesses that were heavier into the SVB ecosystem. Some could not even try to move per their loan covenants. One friend's company had $5m there. They were trying to wire it out this morning without luck. I know others, too, in total three people I know have business accounts with 7 or 8 figure balances at SVB.
What a Friday.