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Next: The Mother Of All Bank Runs? - Forbes

"Financial institutions in the U.S. and in advanced economies are going bust. In the U.S., the latest victims were Washington Mutual  (the largest U.S. savings and loan) and Wachovia (the sixth largest U.S. bank). In the U.K., after Northern Rockand the acquisition of HBOS by Lloyds TSB, you now have the bust and rescue of Bradford & Bingley; in Belgium you had Fortis going bust and being rescued over the weekend; in Germany, Hypo Real Estate, a major financial institution near bust, has also needed rescue."

"The next step of this panic could be the mother of all bank runs, i.e. a run on the trillion dollar-plus of the cross-border short-term interbank liabilities of the U.S. banking and financial system, as foreign banks start to worry about the safety of their liquid exposures to U.S. financial institutions."