Introduction

Four banks in the Henan province of China announced that they were freezing deposits of around $6 billion while they updated their IT systems. Depositors worried at first but began to panic when they learned that a major shareholder had been arrested for serious financial crimes. The frozen bank deposits led to protests and then bank runs. A few months later news hit of a group of home buyers who were threatening to stop making mortgage payments on apartment building projects yet to be completed.