In the second half of 2002 , many informal finance enterprises in the country started to go under . These enterprises were not authorized deposit taking institutions under the Financial Institutions of Myanmar Law , but nevertheless accepted deposits by using the loophole of naming the depositors “ shareholders . ” They promised investors considerably higher interest rates than what private banks were offering ( usually around 10 % per year . ) . While these high rates , regularly reaching 3-4 % per month , seemed hardly possible to return on a sustainable basis , large amount of investors used these entities nevertheless . More often than not , the enterprises depended on either highly speculative investments for the promised rate of return or even sometimes turned out to be not much more than ponzi schemes . Nevertheless , the collapse of the informal finance companies is considered one of the early triggers of the crises . Not only were some of the authorized banks experienced direct financial loss because of exposure to these enterprises through lending and share investments , it also brought about distrust in the still newly liberalized financial sector . Another source of rumors and distrust that laid at the origins of the 2003 crises were allegations of money laundering against Myanmar banks . With the September 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States , the issue of money laundering gained prominence . In response to this , in May 2002 , Myanmar adopted the Law to Control Money and Property Obtained by Illegal Means . This law addressed many concerns of the US State Department and initially lead to a flight of funds from banks in Myanmar . In fact , the situation got serious enough that the government had to assure the banks that they should not be threatened by the new law . Yet , even though the flight of funds did seem to decrease , rumors of large-scale withdrawals persisted . These rumors furthermore undermined the trust to the financial system and brought about fears regarding liquidity of the banks in the face of withdrawn funds
September 2001 terrorist attacks
September 11 attacks
2003 Myanmar banking crisis