SVB's programmatic payment systems are back online

They offer treasury accounts that you can move money to and buy securities if you want yield.

So I don't think they have too much risk as far as interest on deposits. But what worries me, as a small business owner that has been using and loving Mercury for a few years now is that they offer free domestic and international wire transfers and I worry that they might start charging for that. It is the first bank I have had that did free international wires and I actually use that frequently. My last bank charged $85 and I literally had to fax a signed form to them to get it done.

The thing I don't know is if there is a per transaction fee that the banks pay. I assumed that there is and that Mercury was just eating the cost as a marketing expense.

There is still risk of interest rates rising significantly higher, but with 3 months treasure notes the downside is limited.

edit: typoed

Eh, how much does BofA or Chase pay on deposits? Interest rates have gone up, so they might hit 0.05% now?

It gave them the opportunity to make the mistakes they made. It didn't cause them. If you have more deposits than you can responsibly invest, you cut your rates until you can.

(That said, said service to split your eggs up doesn't need to be Mercury - they're just the VC-backed startup darling here. There's plenty of other banks that offer these services.).

Seems like services like this should be more popular.

It's likely not possible to open an account at another bank, wire all our money from SVB to there, and then wire the money to Gusto by 11am on Wednesday. So in the interest of ensuring employees are paid, the fastest option will likely be using SVB.

You're right that operating with two bank accounts now sounds like a good idea. We actually have that already because our structure involves a US parent corporation and a UK subsidiary, but the second bank account is in the UK (thankfully not with SVB UK, although ironically that's because we dragged our feet on moving to it).

Since the ACH payment is scheduled for tonight, we were planning on seeing if it fails, and if it does, sending the wire tomorrow so it arrives by 11am on Wednesday as required.

Except for that you can't log into their website, they don't pick up their phones or answer their emails, etc.

Why the hell would they want a different bank than the one being run by the US government?

The whole point of the herculean effort of a all-deposits-protected federal takeover is to prevent disruption of this kind by providing the firmest possible guarantees.

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To clarify — If you have not yet updated your bank account on file to another (see article), you will have to wire funds to Gusto in order to make payroll on time. Log in to the app, run payroll, and you’ll get a prompt with more details and the specific cut-off, but it’s usually 10am PST in the morning of payroll.

In terms, of getting a new bank set up, I’ve seen people open bank accounts same-day with Mercury (online) or Chase (walking into a branch). Wiring funds from SVB to one of these banks should take <24hr to complete.

But yes, you CAN initiate a wire transfer from SVB if you prefer to do that. Note that some SVB customers are seeing issues with the portal right now (probably given high traffic).

Hope this helps.

Oh, also we created this resource hub to help SVB customers with tips like the above: https://gusto.com/company-news/silicon-valley-bank-closure-r...