Rumors can put a bank to sleep. If people pull out based on the rumors.
+100.
All that needs to happen is a run on the bank, which means everyone running to take out their cash at once, no bank in the world can withstand that.
With banking supposedly regulated, how did SVB get away with that?
Again, when a run on the bank happens nothing will help. This is totally different than what happened in 08. At least at this point, people are not forecasting 2008 again, indeed because the regulations enacted after what happened then.
In a nutshell what happened with SVB is that after they announced that they needed to raise capital it caused hysteria especially since most of their customers were tech and startup companies which have no positive cash flow and in order to be able to continue doing payroll they were told to get their money out asap causing a run of the bank. And this may happen with Signature as well. I personally know a few big companies who wired out most of their assets from signature, if this trend continues they might very well be next, even though as a general matter the bank it self is doing fine.