What if there were a run on a bank and no one knew?
In recent days some U.S. media have focused on a "silent run" on the deposits of Wachovia bank, which is now being taken over, after a bailout plan stalled and its rival Washington Mutual was seized.
Commentators including Nouriel Roubini, Professor of Economics at New York University's Stern School of Business, have highlighted the scope for quiet withdrawals by depositors whose assets exceed guaranteed levels.
But in Europe, another high-profile banking failure has drawn attention to a different 21st-century phenomenon: as homes and businesses increasingly manage their finances online, mass withdrawals may be invisible.
Fortis, focus of a cross-border rescue last week, was also in part the victim of a silent bank run, which along with a dramatic fall in its stock prompted Benelux governments to step in and inject cash into the banking and insurance group.
"If Fortis were in trouble, I would transfer my money over the internet to my parents' account," student Frederique Schilte said outside an Amsterdam branch, where she had gone to drop off a bill payment.
In the Great Depression between 1929 and 1933, much of the damage was caused by runs on banks that gained momentum as people saw lines of customers waiting to salvage cash. In Fortis's case, much of the outflow came at the click of a mouse.
Fortis said it had lost about 3 percent of its deposits since the beginning of this year, both from consumer and business clients, or about 5 billion euros ($7 billion).
Dutch Finance Minister Wouter Bos noted Fortis had trouble keeping corporate clients and was faced with "increasing liquidity problems in the banking activities."
"Big amounts were withdrawn by private and business clients, particularly in Belgium," said Tilburg University Professor Sylvester Eijffinger, who is also an economic policy adviser to the Dutch parliament. "The capital supplied (by Benelux governments) was gone and they had to act quickly."
The intervention seemed this week to have worked.
"We were worried last week, but now that it is now part of the Dutch government, we are staying with Fortis," said a Dutch customer who declined to give her name but said she and her husband have been Fortis customers for 28 years.
