The current banking crisis is a 'worldwide phenomenon' that started long before SVB failed, Harvard professor and former IMF economist says

• Chaos in the banking sector was a long time coming, according to a former IMF chief economist. 
• The crisis was, in part, caused by banks betting on a prolonged period of ultra-low rates, Kenneth Rogoff said. 
• "It's a worldwide phenomenon," he told Yahoo Finance Live.

Turmoil in the banking sector was set to occur long before Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) failed earlier this month, said Kenneth Rogoff, former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund.

Rogoff, a leading scholar of financial crises, said chaos ensued after a number of years of ultra-low interest rates. 

In the case of SVB, the bank had a substantial proportion of deposits invested in securities that it initially had planned to hold to maturity, along with a large number of uninsured deposits.