Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt said consumers and companies need to be able to access their money quickly in the event of a bank collapse, as the UK government seeks to learn from the failure of California’s Silicon Valley Bank.
“We want to make sure that people have access to their deposits as quickly as possible,” Hunt said after meeting with Group of Seven finance ministers and central bank governors in Niigata, Japan, on Saturday. “You need to make sure that the legal and regulatory structures are nimble enough in that emergency situation.”
“We’re doing a big review of what might be necessary,” Hunt added.
Regulators have been examining how to deal with bank runs since the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and a couple of other US regional lenders in March. Companies banking with SVB in the UK have been unable to access their deposits.
The UK Treasury and Bank of England are considering reforms that would give uninsured depositors immediate access to their cash in the event of a bank failure, government officials familiar with the matter said in April. Under the measures, funds would be covered by the taxpayer and clawed back as assets get sold, the people said at the time.
Read more: UK Weighs Reform of Uninsured Bank Deposits After SVB Collapse
Hunt also said that funding for the UK’s technology and life sciences industry needs to come from more diverse sources in light of the SVB failure, and that the government is looking at reforms such as changing pension fund rules to free up alternative pots of capital.
The government wants to “unlock more choice for those companies so that there’s less risk than we have had before,” he said.
