Banks do create money out of thin air, but depositors fleeing does in fact limit their ability to loan money. Here's how that works: every time a bank loans mon

Banks do create money out of thin air, but depositors fleeing does in fact limit their ability to loan money. Here's how that works: every time a bank loans money, they create an asset (the repayment they're owed) and a matching liability (the actual money sitting in someone's account). So long as this stays within the bank or outflows match with inflows, everything works. However, if money starts flowing out of the bank overall for whatever reason then the trick no longer works - and that includes if the money is being transferred out by customers other than the ones being lent to, such as their employees or suppliers. The main consequences of this are usually that one bank can't be substantially more aggressive in lending or offer substantially different interest rates than everone else, which of course affects demand to borrow money from the bank.