The SVB Rescue Is A Relief But Lessons Must Be Learnt

The HSBC deal is a win for Jeremy Hunt, but let's hope he'll exercise caution over City deregulation

- James Moore

Let's start off with the good thing that has emerged from the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, which handled roughly a quarter of the companies in the UK tech sector and had been threatening a meltdown. The UK arm has been rescued via a deal put together over the weekend by the Bank of England, the government, and HSBC - the bank that is picking up the pieces after "a competitive process" and (so we are told) sparing the taxpayer a nasty wallop in the process.

There is something comfortingly old school about the way this was brokered behind closed doors. The end result is that the business will be shifted to HSBC UK, meaning that depositors will be able to get their money and tech workers their wages. Jeremy Hunt and Rishi Sunak can count this as a pre-Budget win, when a pre-Budget disaster had been a very real prospect.