Let us see now, it must be Asia's turn because Europe (Northern Rock) and North America (IndyMac) have already taken their turns. It seems these banks like the "rogue" trader excuse but it is beginning to wear thin as they attempt to hide their derivatives exposure.

Regards - VHF

-

Anxious Depositors Withdraw Cash From Asian Bank

New York Times

HONG KONG — Throngs of depositors lined up outside the headquarters and branches of the Bank of East Asia here on Wednesday to withdraw their money, underlining widespread anxiety in Asia that Wall Street’s recent difficulties might spread across the Pacific.

The Bank of East Asia, Hong Kong’s third-largest with $51 billion in assets, said that malicious rumors had begun spreading through electronic messages late Tuesday, and the Hong Kong police said they would investigate. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority and the bank itself denied that there was any basis to rumors that the bank was in financial distress.

Depositors who lined up outside the company’s headquarters in the city center said that after the failure of Lehman Brothers, they no longer fully trusted any financial institution. “If a business as big as Lehman can go down, then we’re scared,” said Ann Chan, an off-duty nurse, whose husband had called her Wednesday afternoon and sent her to wait in line to withdraw their money.

Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s both lowered their credit outlooks for Bank of East Asia late last week to negative, from stable, after the bank was forced to restate its earnings for the first half of this year. The bank announced that it had discovered an unauthorized “manipulation” of how it valued equity derivatives and restated its first-half profit, reducing it by $16.8 million. The bank attributed the loss to a rogue trader, not global credit problems.