Wildcat bank

Wildcat bank, any of numerous unsound state-chartered U.S. banks that issued paper money (wildcat currency) without having adequate assets (1830–63). They proliferated after Pres. Andrew Jackson dismantled the Second Bank of the United States. Many collapsed after Jackson, alarmed by the inflation caused by the wildcat banks, ordered government agents to accept only gold or silver in payment for public lands. The abrupt failures of the wildcat banks resulted in the 1837 financial panic.