EU lawmakers: Regulators should try to stop panic after Silicon Valley bank collapse

Influential EU lawmaker Markus Ferber said regulators should try to stop panic spreading after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). He said EU banking regulators should check whether European banks are vulnerable to rate shocks like the one that bankrupted the California lender on Friday. “The focus now is on containing further fallout,” Ferber said in an emailed statement. “Panic is contagious and must not be allowed to spread.” is a frequent theme among German politicians who argue that current rules underestimate the risk for indebted governments such as Italy and Greece. EU policymakers have tried to downplay fears of contagion. A European Commission spokesman said on Monday that SVB had “very limited” operations within the EU, and French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire told reporters that banks in France were “unaffected” and had a different business model than SVB. Still, market jitters spilled over into the region. The Stoxx 600 European bank index, which includes banks outside the euro zone, fell 6.3 percent, its biggest one-day drop in more than a year, according to Reuters. (CoinDesk)