Just days after Silicon Valley Bank's collapse amid a run on deposits sparked fears of a US banking crisis, a sudden share price crash for European investment banking giant Credit Suisse has ramped up fears of a wider financial emergency.
However, the two institutions hit strife for very different reasons and regulators have been quick to step in and shore up confidence.
That's left most experts — even well-known pessimists — believing the situation is likely to be contained to a few banks, at least for the moment.
Rabobank's global strategist Michael Every is not renowned for his optimism, but he cannot see a looming re-run of the global financial crisis.
"This is not a repeat of 2008 for one clear reason, which is the banks are much better capitalised generally, and credit quality is not the same issue," he said.
University of Michigan economics professor Betsey Stevenson, who was once an advisor to then US president Barack Obama, agreed.
"I'm not panicked, I don't see this as the GFC 2.0. I don't see a systemic solvency problem," she said.
"The thing we're all going to be looking for, is there some sort of, you know, golden thread, where everybody in the banking sector has been ignoring, or overvaluing assets, in a way that has meant all of their balance sheets are sort of exaggerated.
"That's the kind of systemic problem that could mean we see this ricochet through."
Credit Suisse and SVB two very different banking crises
In fact, Dr Stevenson said it is likely the financial problems at Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) were not as bad as first feared.
"It looks like maybe they weren't quite solvent, but they weren't radically insolvent. But what they were was radically illiquid," she explained.
The illiquidity resulted from SVB's large holding of long-term US Treasury bonds, which plunged in value as interest rates started surging last year.
As depositors asked to withdraw their money, SVB was forced to sell many of these bonds at steep losses, which raised concerns it wouldn't have enough assets to pay out all the debts it owed as and when people demanded their money.
Dr Stevenson said the irony is that SVB was one of the leading protagonists for watering down bank regulation that would, in hindsight, have probably saved it from collapse.
"The head of SVB was the one who lobbied to get those requirements that their bank be able to pass a stress test removed in 2018," she said.
"He got them removed, they couldn't pass the stress test, guess what happened? They failed.
"So I think you really want to focus on the risk taking."
As for Credit Suisse, its troubles started when it admitted deficiencies in its financial controls on Tuesday, followed by comments from a major Saudi shareholder that it would not invest extra funds due to regulatory limits.
Capital Economics' chief European economist Andrew Kenningham said Credit Suisse's bad news came out at an inopportune time after SVB's sudden demise.
"There's sort of contagion — not because they had any connection with Credit Suisse, but because investor sentiment changed and people were scrutinising other banks more carefully and Credit Suisse is seen as the weakest link," he said.
The Swiss National Bank promptly stepped in to provide up to 50 billion Swiss francs ($81 billion) of funding to Credit Suisse, which the troubled institution quickly said it was likely to take up.
SVB was also quickly back-stopped by regulators, who by Monday had guaranteed all deposits above the $US250,000 Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation limit.
Is the US exporting its inflation crisis?
However, Michael Every said another element of that banking system bailout, which allows banks to use the full face value, rather than current market value, of various US bonds as collateral for Federal Reserve financing, could create major financial problems outside America.
"I'm not saying it's free money, but you can borrow at a very reasonable cost against the full value of that asset, rather than the current market value of that asset," he explained.
"And they were doing that initially for one year, but I can imagine that could be extended and extended."
He believes this could allow the Fed to keep raising interest rates without collapsing its banks, in the process lifting the US dollar and effectively exporting its inflation problem everywhere else.
"I think markets are not fully aware yet of how big the potential implications are of what was just done," said Michael Every.
"They're focusing on things like, 'Credit Suisse is in trouble, is this 2008?', et cetera.
"I understand why. But they're actually looking at the wrong crisis."
Mr Every also believes the Fed has little choice but to keep raising interest rates to get inflation under control and maintain the strength and stability of the US dollar, which is being challenged by geopolitical rivals such as China, Russia and Iran.
"Our view is that they will have to. We think they will continue to hike — unless everything completely blows up, they are going to keep going," he said.
"We will fight inflation, we will bring inflation down. But that's going to mean a deep recession, and a credit crunch.
"And that wouldn't be 2008 but it would be a nasty downturn, and that risk is absolutely there if you do too much.
"And inflation being embedded in the system is a risk if you do too little."
He also argues the inflation pressures being exported by the US will likely force other central banks to continue lifting their interest rates, or risk collapsing currencies and embedded inflation.
In turn, this could see highly indebted groups, such as Australia's household sector, experience severe economic pain.
"How do we cope in a world where interest rates are going to be rising steadily, and already have risen a lot when we borrowed so much when rates are so much lower?" he asked rhetorically.
"And if you ask people to explain what happens next, based on that you'll get a wide divergence in the answers, but not very many of them are very reassuring.
"As rates go higher, you will have more and more casualties. And, here's the key point, that's actually a feature, not a bug.
"You don't raise interest rates not to have casualties, you raise interest rates in order to try and change the structure of the economy to a certain degree."
Dr Stevenson agrees that a long period of low inflation and, therefore, very low interest rates have made many people complacent.
"We have enjoyed decades of price stability that have been glorious, but I think they have led to some forgetfulness when it comes to the risks of inflation, the need to be prepared for those risks to diversify around them," she said.
"There seems to be an ignorance that comes from the fact that perhaps many of the people working today in the banking sector just have never experienced a period of inflation, and so they're making mistakes."
