To allay public fears, the Chinese Commercial Bank, in the form of a letter dated 16 December 1913 from Secretary Seow Poh-Leng to the Editor of the Straits Times, wrote, "I notice a short paragraph in your issue of last Saturday to the effect that there has been a feeling of uneasiness in regard to the Chinese banks generally in Singapore and that in consequence many Chinese merchants have transferred their business from Chinese banks to European banks. I beg to state that these statements are not applicable to the Chinese Commercial Bank." Poh-Leng went on to note that the Chinese Commercial Bank had, far from experiencing any loss of business, had improved its turnover - the turnover of business between 20 November 1913 when the uneasiness began and 13 December, exceeded the turnover of the same number of days previously, by 25% and correspondingly customers also increased by more than 26%.