Analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co estimated that the “most vulnerable” banks in the United States are likely to have lost about $1 trillion since last year, with most of the capital outflow occurring this month following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), Reuters reported. .

The team of analysts, led by Nikolaos Panigirtsoglu, did not say which banks they classified as “most vulnerable” or how many institutions were included in that group.

“Uncertainty caused by the movement of deposits may force banks to become more cautious about lending,” analysts noted in the report.

“This risk is exacerbated by the fact that small and medium-sized banks play a disproportionately large role in bank lending in the United States,” it said in a March 22 statement.

US regulators shut down SVB and Signature Bank earlier this month, their collapses the second and third largest bank failures in US history, respectively.

The speed with which customers withdrew their money from the two banks raised fears that panic could spread throughout the banking sector, as US authorities decided to guarantee even uninsured deposits at the two banks.

The two bankruptcies have heightened concerns among many customers who are pulling their money out of smaller banks to put it in institutions that are considered safer and have higher percentages of insured deposits.

According to analysts at JP Morgan, US banks manage a total of $17 trillion in bank deposits, but only $10 trillion is insured against bankruptcy.