A rumor has begun to circulate that Bank of America has sent a memo to top tier clients warning them to anticipate a one-week shutdown of banks. Bank holidays were used following the crash of 1929 to prevent runs on banks during especially panicky time but, as far as we know, no public official has advocated this tactic in our current situation. In fact, we strongly suspect that this rumor is just nonsense.



Keep in mind that while we trust our source on this, he had not received the memo himself. Instead, he had been informed about the memo by a friend who claimed to have received it. We’re rating this: highly speculative and probably false. Even if Bank of America had sent the memo, we’re not sure how they would know in advance to expect a bank holiday.



One possibility might be that Bank of America has merely outlined some worst case scenarios for clients, and included a one week bank holiday among them.

Bank of America called the story "completely unfounded."