SVB lost depositors' trust hours before it lost their money

Over the past few years, we've witnessed a series of bank runs.

What triggers these events is not the balance sheet alone. It's how that information is interpreted — and whether depositors trust that other depositors will stay.

Through analysis of multiple bank-run situations, CrisisCommand identified an important truth: once a narrative of instability takes hold, behavior follows within hours.

In the case of Silicon Valley Bank, concerns that might once have circulated quietly among a small group of investors became broadly visible in hours, not weeks. The fundamentals had not changed overnight. The visibility had.

Credit Suisse followed a slower path, but with a similar outcome. The narrative of weakness built over time through sustained negative coverage and market signals. By the time decisive action came, confidence had already been eroded.

Even in the earlier case of Washington Mutual, before today's digital environment, the same dynamic was visible. Once trust begins to break, the pace of withdrawal accelerates.

Ask any bank GC or CCO who has lived this, and they'll tell you the same thing. They wish they had engaged a core team 72 hours earlier (or better yet, months before through solid crisis planning and simulations) to anticipate and plan how they would manage the narrative.

With the benefit of hindsight, here's what we know about what works — and what doesn't — in these situations.

What works.

• Institutions that navigate liquidity crises credibly are not the ones with the best statements. They are the ones who decided what they would say when liquidity was still flowing.
• They speak to exposure in concrete terms. This means named counterparties, specific risk categories, and actual capital positions. Not just reassurance.
• They deliver one message across employees, clients, investors, and regulators. They know inconsistency is the signal depositors watch for.
• And they validate through third-party voices the market already trusts. They are not the sole, repetitive messengers.

What does not.

• Waiting for full clarity before speaking. By the time the picture is clear, the narrative is already written.
• Generic reassurance. "We remain well-capitalized." "Fundamentals are strong." These "scripts" don't land in moments when markets are looking for specificity.
• Sequential communication, where the statement to employees differs from the statement to investors differs from the statement to the press. Inconsistency compounds faster than liquidity declines.
• And above all, treating communication as the response to a liquidity crisis rather than a component of liquidity itself. In financial services, the two cannot be separated.

A bank run starts before the withdrawals. It starts before the statements. It starts the moment an institution decides it is not yet time to speak.