Through our ongoing monitoring, a mid-sized private bank headquartered in Quito detected an unusual spike in social media mentions linking the institution to alleged liquidity problems. They originated from an ambiguous comment posted by a user on a financial forum and later amplified by anonymous accounts. Within hours, screenshots of the original comment were circulating in WhatsApp groups with an alarmist tone, without any evidence to back up the claim.
The risk was twofold: on the one hand, a potential deposit flight if the rumor escalated; on the other, the regulatory obligation to report to Ecuador's Superintendency of Banks any situation that could affect the perception of stability. The bank needed to refute the rumor with hard data, but without overreacting in a way that would fuel even more distrust.
We activated our crisis management protocol less than three hours after the first alert: together with the bank's finance team, we drafted a technical statement with verifiable liquidity and solvency figures, coordinated its simultaneous publication on official channels and in the same groups and profiles where the rumor had started, and monitored the conversation in real time to identify and contact the accounts that were amplifying the misinformation the most, requesting corrections where appropriate.
Within 72 hours, the volume of negative mentions was falling steadily and no unusual deposit withdrawal activity had been recorded. The bank documented the entire process as part of its internal reputational risk management protocol, which can now be replicated for future incidents.
