Chapter 1313: The Terrified Continental Bank

This plan is just difficult to execute, but Harris Losier was able to arrange it all by himself.

That night, he volunteered to take care of this matter himself, while the others quickly consolidated backup funds and prepared to seize the opportunity to counterattack!

Time was of the essence. After the others had left, Harris Losier immediately called the family headquarters in London and requested the deployment of financial media resources worldwide.

Early on the morning of 23 May, outside the United States, especially in Europe, the islands and Australia, a large number of financial newspaper experts published comments analysing the hidden financial problems and risks of the Continental Illinois Bank & Trust Company.

The reason for not reporting it in the United States was that Harris Roth was going to hit Continental Illinois Bank where it hurt, and did not want to leak the news in the United States in advance, so that the Chicago consortium could be on guard.

Because most of the funds of Continental Illinois Bank came from short-term high-interest deposits from foreign financial institutions, as well as private deposits from overseas.

Continental Illinois Bank only had one headquarters and two buildings in the United States, and was not the kind of community bank that had branches all over the place.

So even if a crisis breaks out, there will be no angry customers waiting in line outside to withdraw their money.

These international financial institutions did not need to withdraw their funds, and they were able to refuse to automatically roll over their short-term deposits in Continental Illinois Bank electronically as soon as the crisis broke.

This refusal is actually equivalent to freezing the funds first, and then it is not too late to withdraw them.

Of course, to freeze the funds in disguise, Continental Illinois Bank also needs to have money within, and if it cannot be dealt with within a few days, then it is over!

So it's still a matter of speed, and the first to act can be the first to ensure the safety of their funds!

After being exposed by financial media outside the United States, it immediately caused a shock in the international financial market.

In particular, international banks with deposit business with Continental Illinois Bank held emergency meetings to discuss whether to take the initiative to default, give up the deposit profit and pay a small amount of liquidated damages to withdraw the deposits.

Of course, there were also those that did not need to discuss and withdrew their funds from Continental Illinois Bank immediately.

For example, Barclays Bank PLC in the UK applied to withdraw its $190 million short-term deposit in the Continental Illinois Bank.

Raiffeisen Zentralbank Österreich AG also applied to withdraw its $140 million short-term deposit in the Continental Illinois Bank.

There were also several other banks controlled by the Rothschild family that applied to withdraw their deposits at the first opportunity.

In total, it amounted to a whopping $490 million!

News from abroad quickly spread back to the United States. When Chairman and President James McCormick was startled and prepared to call a meeting of senior executives, the news that several European banks had refused to roll over funds amounting to 490 million US dollars followed closely behind.

James McCormick felt his scalp tingling, and he practically ran into the meeting room.

The relevant departments and offices of Continental Illinois Bank's information processing were busy as bees.

On the morning of May 23, at the headquarters of Continental Illinois Bank in Chicago,

The atmosphere in the meeting room was extremely oppressive. Everyone present had a grave expression on their faces, and no one spoke of their own accord. They all looked down at the information distributed to them.

When the last person had entered,

'Bump!'

James McCormick, without the slightest regard for his image, patted the table to draw everyone's attention to himself.

He stood up, put his hands on the table, leaned forward, and said in a grave voice,

'Everyone has read the information. Our bank is in a huge crisis. This is a conspiracy by our enemies, and they are very powerful!'

'Barclays Bank, the Austrian Central Savings Bank and other banks that were the first to apply to stop the automatic rolling of funds and withdraw money by defaulting on the agreement, all have the same controller behind the scenes – the Rothschild family!'

'And now, the Canadian branch of the Rothschild family is currently fighting fiercely with us in the Canadian financial market.'

'The reason is clear, because the bulls in the Canadian foreign exchange market are on the verge of being unable to support it.'

'Their goal is also clear, trying to break our capital chain in this way and force us to withdraw our funds!'

'Although the crisis has just occurred, the enemy's attack is very fierce. According to incomplete statistics, a total of 67 media outlets worldwide are known to have spread rumours about our bank!'

'We urgently need to convene a meeting, and the theme of the meeting is to solve this crisis!'

'What do you all have to say?'

James McCormick finished speaking in one breath, sat back down, took a sip from his glass, and looked expectantly at everyone in the room, breathing heavily.

'Chairman, we must immediately arrange for someone to take the initiative to call those customers with deposits of more than 10 million US dollars, explain the reasons to them, reassure them as much as possible, and absolutely not let this panic spread quickly.'

'The Rothschild family's business in our bank is only 490 million US dollars. Their actions have set off a panic. As long as we can withstand the Rothschild family's first wave of attacks, then with the amount of money in our bank, we can do without withdrawing funds from the Canadian foreign exchange market.'

A vice president named Barton Armstrong immediately expressed his opinion.

'I agree with Vice President Armstrong's opinion. The crisis has just begun, and we must not panic. It is not yet time to withdraw funds from the Canadian foreign exchange market. At present, the exchange rate of the Canadian dollar against the US dollar has only fallen to around 0.7868. There is still a lot of room for the Canadian dollar to fall in the short term, which will result in extremely large profits.'

'If we withdraw the funds on our own initiative, then the Rothschild family will have achieved their goal. And since our funds are so large, if we make an emergency delivery, the delivery price will be very disadvantageous.'

'And our withdrawal of funds will be infinitely magnified. International institutions will think that there is a real problem with our capital chain, which is why we have made this unwise move.'

Another vice president, Jonas Clark, said clearly:

'Withdrawing funds is the last resort. I also think that the most urgent thing now is to immediately contact our major clients proactively, reassure them, and ask for their support.'

'If necessary, we can temporarily promise to increase interest rates,'

one executive said immediately.

But another executive immediately countered, 'Raising interest rates is not advisable. This will only make major customers think that our funds are really in trouble, so they take such extraordinary actions.'

Another executive made a key suggestion: 'I suggest immediately applying for help from regulatory agencies and requesting a public statement from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, asking the government to endorse our bank!'

'If there is really a problem with our bank and it leads to its collapse, it will definitely cause financial risks to erupt throughout the United States, and the government will never allow that to happen!'

'I agree!'

'I agree too. I suggest using our connections to get the three major rating agencies, Standard & Poor's, Moody's and Fitch, to come forward and vouch for us, to dispel all rumours!'