Global banks are highly connected, and banking systems are only as strong as the weakest links in the network. This column analyses cross-border syndicated lending to emerging and developing countries from 1993 to 2020 and finds evidence of both resilience and fragility in the global financial system. Contagion through co-lenders affected bank lending more strongly before and during the 2008-09 financial crisis but significantly less in a period after the crisis, consistent with the idea that the reduction in network density as a result of the crisis may have increased resilience to ‘normal shocks’. But Covid-19 is clearly no normal shock, and its impacts are likely spreading through the network, affecting the supply of loans to emerging economies.