A top US banking regulator has accused some US lenders of misreporting deposit data at a time of industry tension over how deposit levels will be used to assess the cost of this year’s failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, in an open letter to bank chief executives on Monday, said it had “observed that some depository institutions” had “incorrectly” lowered the value of their uninsured deposits.
The move comes amid concerns some banks have restated deposit data in ways that reduce what they would owe as part of a “special assessment” proposed by the FDIC in May after the collapse of SVB and Signature Bank. The letter was prompted in part by the restatements, said a person familiar with FDIC officials’ thinking.