Officials at the US Federal Reserve feared that last month's failure of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank would spook depositors across the country and spread misery throughout the entire industry. They say their quick actions helped to contain the damage but admit that their oversight showed "weakness."

On Friday, the Fed's top regulator released an assessment of what caused Silicon Valley Bank to collapse. Michael Barr said it was "a textbook case of mismanagement." He added that the bank's executives failed to identify the problems and were slow to respond.

However, he also faulted his own supervisors. He said they did not realize the danger until it was too late and failed to take "sufficient steps" to make sure the issues were fixed.

Fed officials say changes made to regulatory rules under the Trump administration eased stress tests for banks, like Silicon Valley, with less than 250 billion dollars.

Barr said the bank's failure illustrates the need to improve the "resilience" of the system. He added that the Fed will take another look at rules for banks with more than 100 billion dollars in assets, including stress tests and liquidity requirements.