For all the talk from the Federal Reserve and Treasury about how stable the banking system is, data suggests that the industry continues to see challenges. Not only has the survey and anecdotal information pointed to banks pulling back their lending activity, but according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence, an important indicator critical for bank stability showed its first drop since the firm started monitoring the data since 1994.

S&P Global does rollups of Summary of Deposits data from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. "The US banking industry's deposits contracted 4.8% year over year to $17.269 trillion [through June 30, 2023], as bank runs contributed to three large bank failures in the first half of the year," the firm wrote. "The drop was the first in a data set that dates back to 1994." It was $872 billon year over year.

The majority of large U.S. banks saw year-over-year declines in deposit balances, "with almost 30% of the $871.60 billion industrywide decline attributable to the Big Four banks, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co. and Citigroup Inc."