US Regulators rushed to seize the assets of Silicon Valley Bank after the largest failure of a financial institution since the height of the financial crisis more than a decade ago.

Silicon Valley, United States' 16th largest bank, failed after depositors, mostly technology workers and venture capital-backed companies, hurried to withdraw their money as anxiety over the bank’s situation spread.

The bank could no longer cope with the massive withdrawals of its customers and its last attempts to raise new money did not succeed.

US authorities officially took possession of the bank.

Little known to the general public, SVB had specialised in financing start-ups and had become one of the largest banks in the US by asset size: at the end of 2022, it had 209 billion dollars in assets and about 175.4 billion dollars in deposits.

Its demise represents not only the largest bank failure since that of Washington mutual in 2008, but also the second-largest failure of a retail bank in the United States.

The affects have already spread outside the U.S. French, German, British and Swiss Banks Haver lost their value.