More than a year before a shocking collapse that led to a near-crisis in the financial sector, Silicon Valley Bank was the subject of an investigation set in motion by the Federal Reserve in San Francisco, according to a new report.

Bloomberg is reporting today that the investigative team, made up of senior examiners for the Fed, was tasked with assessing the firm and its potential risks. What they found, it seems, should have been enough to get regulators involved long before the bank collapsed and sent shockwaves through the tech and financial sector – and long before taxpayer bailouts became an option.

According to Bloomberg, those investigators “fired off a series of formal warnings to the bank’s leaders, pressing them to fix serious weaknesses in operations and technology, according to people with knowledge of the matter.” //

In a twist, the San Francisco Fed’s deputy point person in charge of monitoring the bank until late 2021 received a new assignment afterward, becoming the regulator’s point person on Silvergate Capital Corp., according to people with knowledge of the situation. Silvergate also shut this month because of similar flaws in its deposit base and the positioning of its balance sheet. //

As the Democrats call for more regulation of the banking industry, this report highlights a familiar problem – namely, that the regulations and safeguards already in place don’t appear to be working.