Flush with cash from high-flying start-ups, it bought huge amounts of bonds more than a year ago, just before the Federal Reserve began to raise interest rates. Like its peers, Silicon Valley Bank kept just a fraction of the deposits on hand and invested the rest with the hope of earning a return.In particular, the bank put customer deposits into long-dated Treasury bonds and mortgage bonds which, while interest rates were low, promised modest, steady returns.That had worked well for years. The bank’s deposits doubled to $102 billion at the end of 2020 from $49 billion in 2018. One year later, in 2021, its coffers were at $189.2 billion as start-ups and tech …
