OK folks - it LOOKS LIKE we have a possible answer.
I stress the word "possible" here. But this makes sense.

Those of you who follow finance and economics will know that a strange circumstance has happened with the bond markets IN EUROPE. Fully one third of all the major European bonds are now trading with a NEGATIVE INTEREST RATE. Yes, this situation is bizarre. It means that if you are holding assets in European bonds ... you will actually be PAYING FOR THE PRIVILEGE of owning the bonds. Instead of collecting money from a bond, you will need to PAY MONEY to own it!

The logical question is ... WHY DO THIS? The answer of course, is that you don't have to! Literally, the best place for people to store money these days appears to be in their mattress. The equity markets are trading flat, interest rates on bank accounts are almost zero, and now European bonds have negative rates. So literally there in an incentive for individuals and companies to hold their cash in private strong boxes.

APPRENTLY one pension fund in Switzerland decided to do exactly that. You can read what happened when they decided to go down to a SWISS BANK and ask for their cash ...

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-04-25/war-cash-migrates-switzerland

Obviously, the concern is that if banks REFUSE to pay out cash ... then many citizens will become nervous and there will be a RUN ON THE BANKS.

Personally, I am not in the least bit stressed by these events - although I agree that negative rates on bonds is bizarre. But you can never tell what the public will do next. And this may explain why bank managers are being issued survival kits.

Pete