After a strong start of the year, fear and volatility made a comeback in March, this time in the form of a banking crisis. Market turmoil started from the US with the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), whose failed attempt to raise capital in order to meet deposit outflows, triggered a selloff on its shares and a bank run on its deposits. US bank regulators were forced to step in and take control of the bank and had to provide assurances to the banking sector by safeguarding deposits and by setting up a special lending program for affected financial institutions. Despite US authorities’ attempts to calm down the markets, other US regional banks suffered a similar fate with the failure of Signature Bank, while large Wall Street banks had to step in and to deposit $30bn into First Republic to save the struggling bank. The heightened anxiety surrounding the soundness of the banking sector spilled over to Europe, as Credit Suisse came under renewed pressure after revealing “material weakness” in its financial reporting which triggered a massive exodus of depositors and investors, leading to the intervention of the Swiss National Bank and Credit Suisse’s inevitable takeover by its rival UBS.