Most people get so little interest from their accounts that it is basically immaterial

They only need to cover 20 billion or so for SVB? In the grand scheme of all banks, that's not a ton. SVB wasn't some FTX oops it's all gone level fraud.

Assuming it's a one time charge and not a contagion, it sounds like why we have government and FDIC.

$20 Billion is roughly $60 for every person in the country

It's more the state government budget for about 1/3 of the states in the union

128 billion in the FDIC reserves as of December 2022. Better than letting more dominoes fall if you're trying to preserve that insurance pool.

> Yeah, the fees and lower interest rates from this will be pretty brutal for the poor.

I'm fairly sure the poor aren't that affected by interest rates - the very definition of being poor is not owning much in the way of assets that could earn interest...

It's not only the earned interest on savings being discussed here, the OP was also including variable high interest rate loans that most poorer borrowers qualify for.

5 basis points was the last special assessment in 2009. Would you seriously notice a 0.05% lower rate of return on your account?