I'm John Bachelorette. Marks my colleague. He is the UK and US edition of the Guardian

newspapers Small Business Columnist. He also writes for Philadelphia Inquirer. We turn

now to revelations following the Silicon Valley Bank's bankruptcy collapse. Take over

by the federal government and the California regulators because Gene spoke with the small

banks in Philadelphia, Hyperion Bank and others. What he learned was extremely practical.

Chiefly, there's a trick question. I'm going to ask it and Gene will explain. If I ask

you tonight at home, who is your banker? Are you going to tell me city? Are you going

to give me Gene? What is the explanation?

Yeah, that is the question that was asked by Charlie Crawford is the CEO of Hyperion

Bank, who was one of the bankers I interviewed in this piece. Hyperion Bank is a community

bank. It's local to Philadelphia. There are thousands of community and independent banks

all around the country. Charlie goes to, he tells me he goes to business owners and he

asks them the question, you just asked John, tell me who is your banker? He says it in

nine times out of ten. People will name their bank, the road, city bank, it's Wells Fargo.

He'll always stop him and be like, no, that's not what I asked you. He just came to the

name of a bank. Who is your banker? Normally, people can't really identify who their banker

is. That's when Charlie goes, ha, because if you banked with us, you would know the name

of your banker. That is an interesting point in these days of instability and uncertainty

and the financial services industry. The community and independent banks stress the fact that

they have very close and personal relationships with their clients and their customers. You,

as a customer, can call them any time to ask them questions about things like the Silicon

Valley bank collapse and what they're doing to avoid it and hopefully, why it wouldn't

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