An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Like in other parts of the world, Canada is working out what the right to repair means for its people. The federal government said in its 2023 budget released Tuesday that it will bring the right to repair to Canada. At the same time, it's considering a universal charging port mandate like the European Union (EU) is implementing with USB-C. The Canadian federal government's 2023 budget introduces the right to repair under the chapter "Making Life More Affordable and Supporting the Middle Class." It says that the "government will work to implement a right to repair, with the aim of introducing a targeted framework for home appliances and electronics in 2024." The government plans to hold consultations on the matter and claimed it will "work closely with provinces and territories" to implement the right to repair in Canada:

"When it comes to broken appliances or devices, high repair fees and a lack of access to specific parts often mean Canadians are pushed to buy new products rather than repairing the ones they have. This is expensive for people and creates harmful waste. Devices and appliances should be easy to repair, spare parts should be readily accessible, and companies should not be able to prevent repairs with complex programming or hard-to-obtain bespoke parts. By cutting down on the number of devices and appliances that are thrown out, we will be able to make life more affordable for Canadians and protect our environment."

The budget also insinuates that right-to-repair legislation can make third-party repairs cheaper than getting a phone, for example, repaired by the manufacturer, where it could cost "far more than it should." Canada's 2023 budget also revealed the government's interest in introducing a standard charging port for electronics. The budget says the government "will work with international partners and other stakeholders to explore implementing a standard charging port in Canada." It says a universal charging port could help residents save money and e-waste. "Every time Canadians purchase new devices, they need to buy new chargers to go along with them, which drives up costs and increases electronic waste," the budget says.

The UK government will defy scientific doubts to place a massive bet on technology to capture and store carbon dioxide in undersea caverns, to enable an expansion of oil and gas in the North Sea. From a report: Grant Shapps, the energy and net zero secretary, on Thursday unveiled the "powering up Britain" strategy, with carbon capture and storage (CCS) at its heart, during a visit to a nuclear fusion development facility in Oxford. Shapps said the continued production of oil and gas in the North Sea was still necessary, and that the UK had a geological advantage in being able to store most of the carbon likely to be produced in Europe for the next 250 years in the large caverns underneath the North Sea. "Unless you can explain how we can transition [to net zero] without oil and gas, we need oil and gas," he said. "I am very keen that we fill those cavities with storing carbon. I think there are huge opportunities for us to do that."

Shapps pointed to the $24.7bn the government is planning to spend over 20 years on developing CCS, which he said would generate new jobs and make the UK a world leader in the technology. Among the 1,000 pages of proposals to be published on Thursday will be boosts for offshore wind, hydrogen, heat pumps and electric vehicles. A green finance strategy, to be set out by the chancellor of the exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, will be aimed at mobilising private-sector money for investments in green industry, and there will be a consultation on carbon border taxes, aimed at penalising the import of high-carbon goods from overseas. But the plans contain no new government spending, and campaigners said they missed out key elements, such as a comprehensive programme of home insulation and a full lifting of the ban on new onshore wind turbines in England.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: The Biden administration's $80 billion overhaul of the Internal Revenue Service is facing a new line of attack, this time from lobbyists representing tax preparers who fear that the agency's growing power will cripple their businesses and infringe upon taxpayer privacy. The fight is over a potential plan for the I.R.S. to create its own tax-filing system that would allow taxpayers to submit their returns directly to the federal government at no cost. That type of free service could diminish the need for those provided by tax preparation companies like H&R Block and TurboTax. The idea, which is still being studied, is stoking backlash from Republicans and business groups who argue that President Biden's plans to bolster the I.R.S. will give it even more power over ordinary taxpayers.

The I.R.S. received a giant infusion of money as a result of the Inflation Reduction Act, a sweeping climate and energy bill that Congress passed last year. That legislation set aside $15 million for the I.R.S. to conduct a study to determine how it could develop a program that would let Americans file their tax returns directly with the agency. The I.R.S. is expected in the coming days to release its plan for how it intends to spend the $80 billion that it was allocated as part of that legislation. Republican lawmakers have maintained firm opposition to the funding, which will help the agency hire 87,000 employees, and have been taking steps to claw it back. [...] Democrats have long pushed to make filing free for everyone, seeing that as a way to make the process easier and less costly. But that ambition could upend the business models of the multibillion-dollar tax preparation industry, which earns hefty fees for helping people navigate the tax code.

Several companies already provide free tax-filing services through the I.R.S. website to those who earn less than $73,000, and the agency provides forms that taxpayers who do not need any guidance can use to file their returns for free. Some other software platforms offer limited free services for simple tax returns that also do not offer guidance through the process. Initially, a tax-filing system developed by the I.R.S. would be similar to the existing free options. But proponents of the idea believe that over time it could evolve to become a more comprehensive system that would provide taxpayers with returns that are already filled out based on wage data that the I.R.S. tracks. At that point, taxpayers could just sign off on their returns as easily as responding "yes" to a text message.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Late Tuesday night, the Missouri House of Representatives voted for a state operating budget with a $0 line for public libraries. While the budget still needs to work its way through the Senate and the governor's office, state funding for public libraries is very much on the chopping block in Missouri. This comes after Republican House Budget Chairman Cody Smith proposed a $4.5 million cut to public libraries' state aid last week in the initial House Budget Committee hearing, where Smith cited a lawsuit filed against Missouri by the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri (ACLU-MO) as the reason for the cut.

ACLU-MO filed the suit on behalf of the Missouri Association of School Librarians and the Missouri Library Association (MLA) in an effort to overturn a state law passed in 2022 that bans sexually explicit material from schools. Since it was first enacted in August, librarians and other educators have faced misdemeanor charges punishable by up to a year in jail or a $2,000 fine for giving students access to books the state has deemed sexually explicit. The Missouri law defined (PDF) explicit sexual material as images "showing human masturbation, deviate sexual intercourse," "sexual intercourse, direct physical stimulation of genitals, sadomasochistic abuse," or showing human genitals. The lawsuit claims that school districts have been pulling books from their shelves.

"The house budget committee's choice to retaliate against two private, volunteer-led organizations by punishing the patrons of Missouri's public libraries is abhorrent," Tom Bastian, deputy director for communications for ACLU-MO said in a statement to Motherboard. Like in all ACLU cases, the organization is not charging the two Missouri library groups for services. Both library organizations are also run by volunteers -- every state has an equivalent of these two organizations that serve public and school libraries. In other words, a politician either lied or didn't have his facts straight, and now 160 library districts risk losing state aid in June. "State Aid helps libraries provide relevant collections, literacy based programming, and technology resources to their communities," Otter Bowman, president of the MLA told Motherboard in a statement. "Our rural libraries rely the most heavily on this funding to serve their communities, and they will be crippled by this drastic budget cut."

While still CEO of now-collapsed FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried transferred millions of dollars to his father. Some of those funds have since been used to pay for his mounting legal fees, Forbes os reporting, citing two sources close to the company. From a report: Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of fallen cryptocurrency exchange FTX who claimed to have just $100,000 in his bank account last November, is preparing for trial in October backed by a roster of powerful attorneys. But it has remained unclear, until now, how the former billionaire would afford his pricey defense. Forbes has learned that Bankman-Fried has been paying legal fees from a multi-million dollar gift he gave his father with money borrowed from FTX's sister company. In 2021, while CEO of FTX, Bankman-Fried made a large monetary gift to his father, Stanford Law professor Joseph Bankman, two sources with operational knowledge of both companies told Forbes. It was funded by a loan from the exchange's trading firm, Alameda Research, they said.

Bankman-Fried -- who has pleaded not guilty to 12 criminal charges including wire fraud, money laundering and securities fraud, and faces an additional bribery charge -- is accused of misappropriating FTX customer funds through Alameda dating back to the exchange's founding in 2019. A source close to Bankman-Fried told Forbes that his defense costs are likely in the single-digit-millions range. "I didn't steal funds, and I certainly didn't stash billions away," he wrote on Substack earlier this year. Two additional sources familiar with the family told Forbes that Bankman once begged his son to put away savings, but Bankman-Fried reportedly declined.

Apple: Apple today introduced Apple Pay Later in the U.S. Designed with users' financial health in mind, Apple Pay Later allows users to split purchases into four payments, spread over six weeks with no interest and no fees. Users can easily track, manage, and repay their Apple Pay Later loans in one convenient location in Apple Wallet. Users can apply for Apple Pay Later loans of $50 to $1,000, which can be used for online and in-app purchases made on iPhone and iPad with merchants that accept Apple Pay. Starting today, Apple will begin inviting select users to access a prerelease version of Apple Pay Later, with plans to offer it to all eligible users in the coming months.

Apple Pay Later is built right into Wallet, so users can seamlessly view, track, and manage all of their loans in one place. With Apple Pay Later in Wallet, users can easily see the total amount due for all of their existing loans, as well as the total amount due in the next 30 days. Apple Pay Later is offered by Apple Financing, a subsidiary of Apple, which is responsible for credit assessment and lending. Apple Financing plans to report Apple Pay Later loans to U.S. credit bureaus starting this fall, so they are reflected in users' overall financial profiles and can help promote responsible lending for both the lender and the borrower.

Plans for a government backed non-fungible token (NFT) produced by the Royal Mint have been dropped, the Treasury has announced. The BBC reports: Rishi Sunak ordered the creation of a "NFT for Britain" that could be traded online, while chancellor in April 2022. The Treasury announced it was "not proceeding with the launch" following a consultation with the Royal Mint. But economic secretary Andrew Griffiths said the department would keep the proposal "under review."

Responding to the announcement, Harriet Baldwin, chair of the Treasury Select Committee, said: "We have not yet seen a lot of evidence that our constituents should be putting their money in these speculative tokens unless they are prepared to lose all their money. "So perhaps that is why the Royal Mint has made this decision in conjunction with the Treasury."

The Treasury is working to regulate some cryptocurrencies and had planned to enter the NFT market as part of a wider bid to make the UK a hub for digital payment companies. In April 2022, the then-chancellor Mr Sunak said: "We want to see the [cryptocurrency] businesses of tomorrow - and the jobs they create - here in the UK, and by regulating effectively we can give them the confidence they need to think and invest long-term."

First Citizens has agreed to buy a $72 billion chunk of Silicon Valley Bridge Bank, the California lender formerly known as Silicon Valley Bank that was taken over by the FDIC two weeks ago after depositors, in a crisis of confidence, made a run on it. SVB served as lifeblood to thousands of startups before its collapse, the biggest in U.S. banking in years, sent shockwaves through the financial sector. From a report: Seventeen former branches of Silicon Valley Bank will open as First Citizens Bank later today, the FDIC said. The U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said in a statement that it estimates the failure will cost its Deposit Insurance Fund about $20 billion. It will provide an exact figure when the deal and FDIC receivership conclude. There is significant money at stake here, but with depositors and confidence continuing to be shaky, it's taken weeks to get a deal done and each passing day has arguably devalued the assets a little bit. The FDIC has previously run two unsuccessful auction processes for Silicon Valley Bridge Bank , as it had to modify what it was selling, including breaking up the assets. This deal with First Citizens includes purchase deposits and loans, worth about $72 billion, at a discount of $16.5 billion.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Adult industry cryptocurrency payment platform SpankPay announced on Monday that it is closing down, after facing the same banking discrimination it aimed to help sex workers avoid. "After a long and difficult consideration, we have decided to close down SpankPay, our crypto payment processor that we built as a safe haven for our community," SpankPay tweeted. "Rest assured your money is safe and we'll get it to you as soon as possible."

SpankPay is the payments side of the blockchain Spankchain, a sex worker-led alternative to more mainstream cryptocurrency exchanges. Spankchain started development around 2017, and SpankPay launched in 2019. Wyre Payments, the company's upstream payment processor, terminated SpankPay's account because Wyre's new payment processor, Checkout.com, doesn't allow processing for payments related to sexual businesses, SpankPay said. In February, payments through SpankPay were suspended because Wyre indefinitely terminated Spankpay, alleging it was in violation of "third-party payment processor or network rules," according to a legal letter sent from Wyre that SpankPay posted to Twitter. "Operating SpankPay in a hostile banking environment has always been challenging, but the escalating attacks have become untenable for our small team and the niche market we serve," SpankPay tweeted in February.

The concept of "buy now, pay later" has exploded in popularity in recent years. Americans have been using this form of lending -- in which the cost of a purchase is typically divided into four payments over several weeks or months -- to buy everything from clothes to Peloton bikes. But now there is a new trend: People are using the payment method for smaller items, like groceries. From a report: Buy now, pay later -- referred to in the payments industry as BNPL -- is a new spin on the concept of layaway. It allows consumers to get the product up front, divide their payment into installments paid over a longer period with little or no interest -- as long as the make the payments on time. Common BNPL options include Afterpay, Klarna, Affirm, PayPal and Zip. In the first two months of 2023, the share of online grocery orders made using buy now, pay later grew by 40% compared with the same period a year ago, according to new data released by Adobe Analytics this week. The overall rise in BNPL online orders, meanwhile, grew by 10% over the same period, and overall online BNPL revenue fell by 19%, meaning the average dollar amount for each order fell. This trend may be partly due to the fact that Americans are simply spending more money on groceries online. Online grocery spending grew by nearly 27% year over year to $8.4 billion in February.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele said on Thursday he will send to the country's Congress next week a bill to eliminate all taxes on technology innovations as well as computing and communications hardware manufacturing. "Next week, I'll be sending a bill to congress to eliminate all taxes (income, property, capital gains and import tariffs) on technology innovations, such as software programming, coding, apps and AI development," he said on Twitter. The tax cut would also encompass computing and communications hardware manufacturing, Bukele added. In 2021, the Salvadoran leader introduced legislation to make El Salvador the world's first sovereign nation to adopt bitcoin as legal tender. He also unveiled plans to build a "Bitcoin City" at the base of a volcano.

Ford's electric vehicle business has lost $3 billion before taxes during the past two years and will lose a similar amount this year as the company invests heavily in the new technology. The Associated Press reports: The figures were released Thursday as Ford rolled out a new way of reporting financial results. The new business structure separates electric vehicles, the profitable internal combustion and commercial vehicle operations into three operating units. Company officials said the electric vehicle unit, called "Ford Model e," will be profitable before taxes by late 2026 with an 8% pretax profit margin. But they wouldn't say exactly when it's expected to start making money.

Chief Financial Officer John Lawler said Model e should be viewed as a startup company within Ford. "As everyone knows, EV startups lose money while they invest in capability, develop knowledge, build (sales) volume and gain (market) share," he said. Model e, he said, is working on second- and even third-generation electric vehicles. It currently offers three EVs for sale in the U.S.: the Mustang Mach E SUV, the F-150 Lightning pickup and an electric Transit commercial van. The new corporate reporting system, Lawler said, is designed to give investors more transparency than the old system of reporting results by geographic regions. The automaker calculated earnings for each of the three units during the past two calendar years.

Canceling a subscription should be just as easy as signing up for the service, the Federal Trade Commission said in a proposed "click-to-cancel" rule announced today. If approved, the plan "would put an end to companies requiring you to call customer service to cancel an account that you opened on their website," FTC commissioners said. From a report: The FTC said the click-to-cancel rule would require sellers "to make it as easy for consumers to cancel their enrollment as it was to sign up," and "go a long way to rescuing consumers from seemingly never-ending struggles to cancel unwanted subscription payment plans for everything from cosmetics to newspapers to gym memberships."

The FTC said the proposed rule would be enforced with civil penalties and let the commission return money to harmed consumers. "The proposal states that if consumers can sign up for subscriptions online, they should be able to cancel online, with the same number of steps. If consumers can open an account over the phone, they should be able to cancel it over the phone, without endless delays," FTC Chair Lina Khan wrote. The FTC is seeking public comment on the proposal, which also includes other changes to the commission's 1973 Negative Option Rule. "Some businesses too often trick consumers into paying for subscriptions they no longer want or didn't sign up for in the first place," Khan said.

JPMorgan Chase is planning to test new technology that would let consumers pay with their palms or faces at certain US merchants. From a report: The bank, home to one of the world's biggest payment-processing businesses, plans to roll out the service to its broader base of US merchant clients if the pilot program goes well, according to a statement Thursday. The pilot may include a Formula 1 race in Miami as well as some brick-and-mortar stores. "The evolution of consumer technology has created new expectations for shoppers," Jean-Marc Thienpont, head of omnichannel solutions for JPMorgan's payments business, said in the statement. "Merchants need to be ready to adapt to these new expectations."

JPMorgan is seizing on the rising popularity of biometrics technology, which uses unique body measurements to authenticate a person's identity. The technology is expected to account for roughly $5.8 trillion in transactions and 3 billion users by 2026, JPMorgan said, citing Goode Intelligence. Here's how it works: Customers enroll their palm or face through an in-store process. Then, at checkout, they scan their biometric to complete the transaction and get a receipt.

turp182 shares a report from Ars Technica: Hackers drained millions of dollars in digital coins from cryptocurrency ATMs by exploiting a zero-day vulnerability, leaving customers on the hook for losses that can't be reversed, the kiosk manufacturer has revealed. The heist targeted ATMs sold by General Bytes, a company with multiple locations throughout the world. These BATMs, short for bitcoin ATMs, can be set up in convenience stores and other businesses to allow people to exchange bitcoin for other currencies and vice versa. Customers connect the BATMs to a crypto application server (CAS) that they can manage or, until now, that General Bytes could manage for them. For reasons that aren't entirely clear, the BATMs offer an option that allows customers to upload videos from the terminal to the CAS using a mechanism known as the master server interface.

Over the weekend, General Bytes revealed that more than $1.5 million worth of bitcoin had been drained from CASes operated by the company and by customers. To pull off the heist, an unknown threat actor exploited a previously unknown vulnerability that allowed it to use this interface to upload and execute a malicious Java application. The actor then drained various hot wallets of about 56 BTC, worth roughly $1.5 million. General Bytes patched the vulnerability 15 hours after learning of it, but due to the way cryptocurrencies work, the losses were unrecoverable. [...] Once the malicious application executed on a server, the threat actor was able to (1) access the database, (2) read and decrypt encoded API keys needed to access funds in hot wallets and exchanges, (3) transfer funds from hot wallets to a wallet controlled by the threat actor, (4) download user names and password hashes and turn off 2FA, and (5) access terminal event logs and scan for instances where customers scanned private keys at the ATM. The sensitive data in step 5 had been logged by older versions of ATM software.

Going forward, this weekend's post said, General Bytes will no longer manage CASes on behalf of customers. That means terminal holders will have to manage the servers themselves. The company is also in the process of collecting data from customers to validate all losses related to the hack, performing an internal investigation, and cooperating with authorities in an attempt to identify the threat actor. General Bytes said the company has received "multiple security audits since 2021," and that none of them detected the vulnerability exploited. The company is now in the process of seeking further help in securing its BATMs.

Strains in the banking sector are roiling a roughly $8 trillion bond market considered almost as safe as U.S. government bonds. From a report: So-called agency mortgage bonds are widely held by banks, insurers and bond funds because they are backed by the mortgage loans from government-owned lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The bonds are far less likely to default than most debt and are easy to buy and sell quickly, a crucial reason they were Silicon Valley Bank's biggest investment before it foundered.ÂBut agency mortgage-backed securities, like all long-term bonds, are vulnerable to rising interest rates, which pushed their prices down last year and saddled banks such as SVB with unrealized losses. Now that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has taken over SVB, investors expect the bonds to be sold off in coming months, adding supply to the weakened market and pushing prices lower.

Last week, the risk premium on a widely followed Bloomberg index of agency MBS hit its highest level since October, when climbing interest rates turned global markets topsy-turvy. The move reflected fears that other regional banks might have to sell their holdings, bond-fund managers said. [...] When benchmark interest rates rise, bonds that were sold at times of lower rates lose value. Prices of such "low coupon" agency MBS started dropping about a year ago, when the Federal Reserve raised rates to fight inflation and indicated it might start selling MBS it owned. Some of the bonds lost 15% or more in a matter of months, trading as low as 80 cents on the dollar, according to data from FactSet.

After a years-long wait, Apple Pay today launched in South Korea, allowing those living in the country to use Apple's payment system to make contactless payments using the iPhone or Apple Watch. MacRumors reports: Apple has been working to bring Apple Pay to South Korea since 2017, but Apple was unable to be registered as an electronic financial business operator because regulators were investigating whether Apple Pay violated local regulations and laws. Apple was finally approved by financial regulators back in February.

NFC terminal adoption was also low in retail stores in South Korea around when Apple Pay first launched, which continues to be an issue. There are more NFC terminals than there were six years ago, but The Korea Times suggests Apple Pay will face "significant challenges" in Korea due to the limited number of NFC terminals. At the current time, Apple Pay is limited to Hyundai Card users, which could see South Koreans interested in using the service picking up a Hyundai Card. No other card companies are participating in Apple Pay as of yet.

After almost 17 years online, file-hosting veteran Zippyshare will shut down at the end of the month. TorrentFreak: Founded in 2006, Zippyshare was known for its free, no-nonsense, no-frills approach to storing files online. Having changed very little over the years, Zippyshare's operators say the platform is now a dinosaur that costs too much to run in a world where ad-blocking is widespread. Zippyshare said, "Since 2006 we have been on the market in an unchanged form, that is, as ad financed/free file hosting. However, you have been visiting in less and less over the years, as the arguably very simple formula of the services we offer is slowly running out of steam. I guess all the competing file storage service companies on the market look better, offer better performance and more features. No one needs a dinosaur like us anymore."

Credit Suisse, the Swiss banking giant that liked to live dangerously, has run out of road. From a report: The bank struck a deal this weekend to be bought by rival UBS Group after an uncontrolled slide in its stock and bonds. The agreement marks the end of 167 years as an independent institution, a humbling comedown for a bank that once went toe-to-toe with U.S. giants on Wall Street and boasted a market value greater than that of Goldman Sachs Group. The bank's downfall has roots in the way it exited the last financial crisis flush with confidence.

When the financial system seized up in 2008, Credit Suisse emerged in better shape than many rivals. It was then slow to adjust to how the crisis changed banking. The lender relied on a freewheeling investment bank, dawdled in its pivot to more stable lines of business and above all failed to shake its predilection for risk. "They felt, 'We are the winner from the financial crisis, and everyone else is hurt,''' said Andreas Venditti, a banking analyst at Vontobel. "So they doubled down on these kinds of businesses and on investment-banking exposure in general." The result was 15 years of scandal, litigation and strategic zigzags while other major banks became more focused, more regulated and more free of drama. A spying imbroglio, a $5.5 billion loss on a single client, executive turnover, fines in connection with tax and sanctions evasion and a fraud settlement over Mozambican loan sales weakened the bank financially while eroding the confidence of investors.

Axios remembers that it was just nine days ago that there were "concerns" about Silicon Valley Bank at venture capital firm. And soon Founders Fund's top operations executives "were on the phone, quickly deciding to move firm capital to a number of bigger banks." Firm founder Peter Thiel was not part of the conversation. One source says that the assumption was that they'd return the money to SVB after the crisis had ended....

Founders Fund wasn't the only venture capital firm giving this sort of warning to portfolio companies, nor necessarily the first, but word of its advice spread like wildfire (it also ended up in media reports, including one from Axios). Almost immediately, the firm came under withering criticism from some other venture capitalists, accusing Founders Fund (and Thiel personally) of sparking a bank run that ultimately led to $42 billion in withdrawals. Some even speculated that it was intentional, as payback for some unknown grudge between the two groups.
Earlier this week the Washington Examiner chronicled some of that criticism: "There should be more scrutiny of Peter Thiel and [hedge fund manager] Bill Ackman for yelling fire in a crowded theater in this SVB collapse," tweeted CNBC host Sara Eisen [on Monday]. Others turned their focus to Thiel's promotion and subsequent profiting off of crypto investments after the market crashed as a reason to be suspicious of his withdrawals. "You mean the guy who was touting crypto and trashing critics while he was selling crypto? That guy? Shocker!" tweeted tech journalist Kara Swisher.
But Peter Thiel says he actually left his own money in the bank, reports Business Insider: "I had $50 million of my own money stuck in SVB," he told the Financial Times.... Thiel told the Financial Times that he did not believe the SVB would fail last week.

Other venture capital firms — including Coatue Management, Union Square Ventures, and Founder Collective — had similarly advised startup clients to transfer money from SVB after the bank revealed a $1.8 billion loss and the bank's share price collapsed. These firms have pushed back against accusations that they were spreading panic, saying that they were giving financial advice they believed would be in the best interest of their clients....

Thiel told the Financial Times that his account was frozen on Friday when regulators stepped in and took control of the bank. However, it is once again accessible after the US government stepped in earlier this week and shored up all customer deposits in SVB.