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Comment by peter422 | Hacker News Reader

What bank do you use?

When was the last time you went over their deposit base and asset allocation?

I use an FDIC-insured bank. My deposits are under the limit for insurance. I don’t care about its deposit base or asset allocation because that’s the point of deposit insurance: to make retail depositors feel secure.

On the other hand, a CFO with millions in cash is a professional whose job is to manage corporate risk. A competent CFO needs to account for things like bank failures, which do happen.

Great now every startup and every business needs to hire a CFO because a bank can't be trusted to store any number higher than $250k?

So if my nascent 5-person startup raises 1.2M your suggestion is I need to hire a CFO? That's going to help innovation?

If you raise $1.2M… you're going to tell me it's not worth your time to frigging walk to 5 banks and open accounts to make sure that money is safely stored?

For something you can't afford to lose, you sure fon't seem to be treating it that way.

Yes. If you manage $1.2M you need to be smart enough about managing it, or have some smart people advising you. I don't manage $1.2M yet I know there's a limit on FDIC insurance. If you manage $1.2M and you don't know that, maybe the people who gave you $1.2M made a mistake.

There should be a checkbox somewhere in your bank to put your money in multiple CDs in multiple banks transparently for you.

... that's what banks do, they just do it at scale. So you want every person to be their own bank?

Why not just let the FDIC do their job, trust in the banking system and save yourself the trouble of worrying about a bank run.

If you’re small enough to get fully covered by all means please do, I agree 100%.

Interactive brokers does this, you can configure it with which of their fleet of banks you already have accounts at so you don't undermine its logic.

> When was the last time you went over their deposit base and asset allocation

Sweep account and credit rating. First is a one-time option. Second, an occasional check.

Sweep accounts are fine, but I’m not sure I’d bother with credit ratings. SVB’s was basically as high as possible even for a few hours after the run started and before they closed:

https://ir.svb.com/shareholder-and-bondholder-information/cr...

> SVB’s was basically as high as possible

Borderline investment grade isn’t “high as possible.”

I misread the table. Thanks.

> When was the last time you went over their deposit base and asset allocation?

A few times but only for a short time and a small percentage of the capital. Was already a full grown adult in 2008, have good memory, and are still licking many old lion financial battle scars...

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