Call the influencers: How the CDIC tried to quell fears after SVB’s collapse

Documents obtained by Global News show how fears of banking instability in Canada tied to Silicon Valley Bank's collapse rippled through corporation in charge of deposit insurance.

Fears that banking instability in the United States could creep north of the border in the wake of Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse this past March resulted in a spike in calls to Canadian Deposit Insurance Corp. from people worried about their money.

Documents obtained by Global News via an access to information request show a surge of interest in the Crown corporation during the weekend after SVB and its Canadian arm were seized by regulators in each country.

The release contains emails sent within the corporation as staff sought to gauge the impact in the early days of banking instability. It reveals an effort to calm worried Canadians as American customers began to fret about whether their deposits at SVB would be insured, and even attempts to tap a network of influencers to adopt CDIC messaging.

The CDIC received more than 200 calls on March 13 — the first Monday after SVB’s collapse — up from the typical 30 to 50 calls it would receive at the start of the week, according to the release. CDIC employees noted this was especially significant as the uncertainty from the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 yielded an average of 110 calls per day.

Email volumes followed a similar trend to calls, according to the documents. Social media interactions were up 177 per cent over the weekend, compared with the earlier half of the week before SVB’s collapse was making headlines.

Canadians were asking CDIC basic questions about coverage, according to emails describing the nature of calls, emails and social media interactions. The corporation’s website was seeing similar spikes in traffic to pages about how deposit protection works, what’s covered and which institutions belong to the CDIC.

California banking regulators moved quickly to shut SVB down on March 10 after depositors withdrew US$42 billion in 24 hours. Signature Bank swiftly fell after SVB, with banking turmoil spreading to First Republic Bank and Credit Suisse in Switzerland in the weeks that followed.

The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions seized SVB’s Canadian arm that weekend and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland met with the regulators and the Bank of Canada to gauge any Canadian impact from the fallout.