FTX and Silicon Valley Bank have one big thing in common: they both failed. But those who deposited money with SVB can sleep a lot better Friday night after the bank was ordered to shut down than many FTX customers.

That's because many of SVB customers' deposits were insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), unlike FTX customers who haven't been able to gain access to funds in their accounts since the cryptocurrency exchange site declared bankruptcy. 

SVB's demise came after its customers, mostly technology workers and venture capital-backed companies, began withdrawing their money as anxiety about the bank's financial stability spread this week. 

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The FDIC announced Friday afternoon that customers who had up to $250,000 per account deposited with SVB, which was the nation's 16th-largest bank, will have access to their funds by Monday morning. Customers with accounts in excess of $250,000 were instructed to call the FDIC at 1-866-799-0959.

The reason many SVB customers will gain access to at least $250,000 of their deposits immediately isthe financial institution backed by the FDIC.

The FDIC is an independent branch of the government that was created during the Great Depression to restore the public's confidence in banks. During the Great Depression, many banks were failing partly because they had lent out too much of the money customers deposited with them.

At a basic level, banks make money by charging interest to lend money to people. But the money they lend out often comes from customers' deposits. That isn't problematic unless the bank finds itself in a situation where every customer wants to withdraw their deposits at once in what's known as a bank run. 

The bank would have to tell many customers they don't have their money because they lent it out. That's likely what would have happened to SVB customers if the bank wasn't a member of the FDIC.

When banks are members of the FDIC they have to adhere to the agency's regulations designed to make sure they aren't engaging in dangerous practices that could jeopardize their customers' deposits. In exchange, the FDIC offers their customers insurance for up to $250,000 in deposits in the event that the bank fails.

If an FDIC-insured bank can't resolve the issues that are putting it on the brink of collapse, the FDIC will step in and try to help sell its remaining assets to a healthy bank. But when there aren't any willing buyers, the FDIC will take over the failing bank and pay its depositors up to the insured limit.

That's what the agency did with SVB on Friday. 

When the FDIC takes over a bank, it gains control of all its assets by creating a new quasi-bank. In this instance, the FDIC created the Deposit Insurance National Bank of Santa Clara to receive all of SVB's assets and sell them as needed so that as many depositors as possible can regain access to their funds. 

FDIC-bank failures are rare. SVB is the first bank to fail since 2020.

This should serve as "a wake-up call for people to always make sure their money is at an FDIC-insured bank and within FDIC limits and following the FDIC's rules," said Bankrate analyst Matthew Goldberg in a statement on Friday.

Since 2000, there have been over 500 bank failures, according to the FDIC. As of December 2022, there were more than 4,700 FDIC-insured financial institutions. 

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Washington Mutual was the biggest bank failure in U.S. history. It collapsed during the height of the Great Recession. SVB is the second biggest failure.

You can find out if the bank you deposit money in is FDIC-insured by using the FDIC's online BankFind tool or by contacting your bank directly. 

Elisabeth Buchwald is a personal finance and markets correspondent for USA TODAY. You can follow her on Twitter @BuchElisabeth and sign up for our Daily Money newsletter here

The Associated Press contributed