By Andrea Shalal
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House is continuing to monitor the situation at First Republic Bank, which has continued to lose deposits this week, spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said on Thursday, vowing that the Biden administration stood ready to take action if needed.
Deposits at regional banks have stabilized and the Biden administration can use the same tools it used in recent weeks to address financial stress if needed, she said.
Jean-Pierre said financial regulators and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen agreed that the U.S. banking system remained sound after “decisive and forceful” actions were taken last month to protect depositors at two regional banks, Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, and provide liquidity to the market.
“We have used important tools to quickly stabilize the banking system. We could use those tools again, if needed. Certainly we are monitoring this situation,” she told reporters when asked about growing market worries about First Republic.
First Republic’s shares were trading higher on Thursday after a bruising sell-off that wiped out 60% of the stock’s value this week following the San Francisco-based bank’s disclosure on Monday that it had lost more than $100 billion of deposits in the first quarter of the year.
Pressed to explain the administration’s views on whether to protect depositors in First Republic, as it did in the cases of SVB and Signature, Jean-Pierre said, “We have proven how we have moved really quickly in … taking decisive and forceful actions in the past, and I can assure you that you’ll see that again from this administration.”
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Writing by Moira Warburton; Editing by Tim Ahmann and Diane Craft)
