Bank execs blame panicked depositors for Silicon Valley, Signature failures, but senators blame them

By KEN SWEET
The Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Top executives at Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank largely avoided taking responsibility for their banks’ dramatic failures at a Senate hearing Tuesday, instead using their time to assign blame to events they said were largely out of their control. The arguments got little traction with senators on both sides of the aisle. Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Banking Committee criticized the executives for taking risky actions or missing obvious problems that directly led to the demise of their banks, while still accepting lucrative pay packages and bonuses, even in the days and weeks leading up to the failures.