The company, founded in 2001 by John Duffield, has seen a flood of customer withdrawals as retail investors panicked at the effects of the credit crunch.
"By imposing restrictions upon customer withdrawals at a time when some bank analysts are pointing at HSBC's balance sheet, all the bank has succeeded in doing is stoking rumours," said Joel Benjamin of anti-bank campaign group Move Your Money.
The action was a bit of bright news for investors in the Reserve U.S. Government Fund, one of more than a dozen Reserve funds that froze customer withdrawals more than two months ago after being hit with waves of redemption demands.
Bitstamp, the manager of the world's largest bitcoin exchange, said over the weekend that it had restored automated customer withdrawals, after they were halted for days due to a hacking attack that crippled various Bitcoin platforms.
The banks kept a small portion of the deposits to cover customer withdrawals.
A second source familiar with the case said U.S. federal law enforcement is investigating Mt. Gox, which halted customer withdrawals on February 7 in response to what it termed "unusual activity".
In 1998, banks charged on average $0.89 for non-customer withdrawals and $1.08 for withdrawals made on out-of-network ATMs, meaning that since 1998, ATM fees have gone up by almost 132%.
When a customer's withdrawals exceeded the cash invested, Cohmad's employees no longer earned fees on that account, even though the customer's statements still showed a substantial balance, according to the suits.
But as I watch Mary – the loans registrar – digging into her own purse to dole out her customer's withdrawals (it's been too busy to nip to the post office for more cash), I begin to question whether they can be solution to the payday loan dilemma, at least on their own.
