Finance & economics

财经版块

The missing half-trillion

丢失的五千亿美元

How the Federal Reserve drained the America's banks of deposits.

美联储如何抽走了美国银行的存款。

It is easy to understand how money gets destroyed in a traditional bank run.

不难理解，在传统的银行挤兑中，资金是如何被摧毁的。

Picture the men in top hats yelling at clerks in “Mary Poppins”.

想象一下《玛丽·波平斯》中戴着高礼帽的男人对银行职员大喊大叫的情景。

The crowds want their cash and bank tellers are trying to provide it.

一群人想要取出现金，银行出纳员正努力提供现金。

But when customers flee, staff cannot satisfy all comers before the institution topples.

但当客户纷纷逃离时，员工不可能满足前来取钱的所有人，然后银行倒闭了。

The remaining debts (which, for banks, include deposits) are wiped out.

剩余的债务(对于银行来说，其中包括存款)被一笔勾销。

This is not what happens in the digital age.

这不是数字时代发生的事情。

The depositors fleeing Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) did not ask for notes and coins.

逃离硅谷银行的储户没有索要纸币和硬币。

They wanted their balances wired elsewhere.

他们想把余额汇到别处去。

Nor were deposits written off when the bank went under.

当银行倒闭时，存款也没有被注销。

Instead, regulators promised to make SVB’s clients whole.

相反，监管机构承诺要让硅谷银行的客户完好无损。

Although the failure of the institution was bad news for shareholders, it should not have reduced the aggregate amount of deposits in the banking system.

虽然该机构的倒闭对股东来说是个坏消息，但它不应该减少银行体系的存款总量。

The odd thing is that deposits in American banks are nevertheless falling.

奇怪的是，美国银行的存款数额却在下降。

Over the past year those in commercial banks have sunk by half a trillion dollars, a drop of nearly 3%.

在过去的一年里，商业银行的存款减少了5000亿美元，降幅接近3%。

This makes the financial system more fragile, since banks must shrink to repay their deposits.

这使得金融体系更加脆弱，因为银行必须收缩规模才能偿还存款。

Where is the money going?

钱都到哪里去了呢？

The answer starts with money-market funds, low-risk investment vehicles that buy short-term government and corporate debt.

答案从货币市场基金开始，货币市场基金是购买短期政府和公司债券的低风险投资工具。

These saw inflows of $121bn last week as SVB failed.

上周，随着硅谷银行倒闭，这些基金的资金流入达到1210亿美元。

However money does not actually enter such vehicles, for they are unable to take deposits.

然而，资金实际上并不会进入这类工具，因为它们无法承接存款。

Instead, cash that leaves a bank for a money-market fund is credited to the fund’s bank account, from which it is used to purchase the commercial paper or short-term debt in which the fund invests.

相反，从银行流向货币市场基金的现金被记入该基金的银行账户，用于购买该基金投资的商业票据或短期债券。

When the fund uses money in this way, it flows to the bank account of whichever institution sells the asset.

当基金以这种方式使用资金时，资金会流入任何出售资产的机构的银行账户。

Inflows to money-market funds should thus shuffle deposits around the banking system, rather than force them out of it.

因此，流入货币市场基金的资金应该会在银行系统中转移存款，而不是迫使存款离开银行系统。

And that is what used to happen.

这就是过去常发生的情况。

Yet there is one obscure way in which money-market funds may suck deposits from the banking system:

然而，有一种隐蔽的方式可以让货币市场基金从银行系统中吸走存款：

the Federal Reserve’s reverse-repo facility, which was introduced in 2013.

2013年推出的美联储逆回购工具。

The scheme was a seemingly innocuous change to the financial system’s plumbing that may, a decade later, be having a profoundly destabilising impact on banks.

该计划看似无伤大雅地改变了金融体系的管道，10年后可能会对银行产生深远的破坏稳定的影响。

In a usual repo transaction a bank borrows from competitors or the central bank and deposits collateral in exchange.

在通常的回购交易中，银行向竞争对手或央行借款，并存入抵押品作为交换。

A reverse repo does the opposite.

逆回购正好相反。

A shadow bank, such as a money-market fund, instructs its custodian bank to deposit reserves at the Fed in return for securities.

影子银行，如货币市场基金，指示其托管银行将准备金存入美联储，以换取证券。

The scheme was meant to aid the Fed’s exit from ultra-low rates by putting a floor on the cost of borrowing in the interbank market.

该计划旨在通过为银行间的借贷成本设定下限，从而帮助美联储退出超低利率。

After all, why would a bank or shadow bank ever lend to its peers at a lower rate than is available from the Fed?

毕竟，一家银行或影子银行为什么要以低于美联储提供的利率而向同行放贷呢？

But use of the facility has jumped in recent years, owing to vast quantitative easing (QE) during covid-19 and regulatory tweaks which left banks laden with cash.

但近年来，由于新冠肺炎期间的大规模量化宽松以及监管方面的微调--这让银行背上了大量现金--该工具的使用大幅增加。

QE creates deposits: when the Fed buys a bond from an investment fund, a bank must intermediate the transaction.

量化宽松创造了存款：当美联储从投资基金购买债券时，银行必须为交易提供中介。

The fund’s bank account swells; so does the bank’s reserve account at the Fed.

基金的银行账户膨胀，银行在美联储的储备账户也在膨胀。

From the start of QE in 2020 to its end two years later, deposits in commercial banks rose by $4.5trn, roughly equal to the growth in the Fed’s own balance-sheet.

从2020年量化宽松开始到两年后结束，商业银行存款增加了4.5万亿美元，大致相当于美联储自身资产负债表的增长。

For a while banks could cope with the inflows because the Fed decided at the start of covid to ease a regulation known as the “supplementary leverage ratio” (SLR).

在一段时间内，银行可以应对资金流入，因为美联储在疫情开始时决定放松一项被称为“补充杠杆率”的规定。

This stopped the growth in commercial banks’ balance-sheets from forcing them to raise more capital, allowing them to safely use the inflow of deposits to increase holdings of Treasury bonds and cash.

这阻止了商业银行因资产负债表的增长而被迫筹集更多资本，使它们能够安全地利用流入的存款增持美国国债和现金。

Banks duly took the opportunity, buying $1.5trn of Treasury and agency bonds.

银行及时抓住了这个机会，购买了1.5万亿美元的美国国债和机构债券。

Then in March 2021 the Fed let the exemption from the SLR lapse.

然后，在2021年3月，美联储让对补充杠杆率的减免失效。

As a result, banks found themselves swimming in unwanted cash.

结果，银行发现自己被过多的现金淹没。

They shrank by cutting their borrowing from money-market funds, which instead chose to park their cash at the Fed.

它们减少了从货币市场基金的借款，而货币市场基金则选择将现金存放在美联储。

By 2022 the funds had $1.7trn deposited overnight in the Fed’s reverse-repo facility, compared with a few billion a year earlier.

到2022年，基金隔夜存入美联储逆回购工具的资金达到1.7万亿美元，而一年前只有数十亿美元。

After the fall of SVB, America’s small and midsized banks fear deposit outflows.

硅谷银行倒闭后，美国的中小型银行担心存款外流。

The problem is that monetary tightening has made them still more likely.

问题是，货币紧缩使得存款外流更有可能出现。

Gara Afonso and colleagues at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York find that use of money-market funds rises along with rates, since returns adjust faster than those from bank deposits.

纽约联邦储备银行的加拉·阿方索和他的同事发现，货币市场基金的使用随着利率上升而上升，因为回报的调整速度快于银行存款的调整速度。

Indeed, the Fed has raised the rate on overnight-reverse-repo transactions from 0.05% in February 2022 to 4.8%, making it much more alluring than the going bank-deposit rate of 0.4%.

的确，美联储已经将隔夜逆回购交易的利率从2022年2月的0.05%上调至4.8%，使其比目前0.4%的银行存款利率更具吸引力。

The amount money-market funds parked at the Fed through the reverse-repo facility--and thus outside the banking system--jumped by half a trillion dollars in the same period.

同期，货币市场基金通过逆回购工具存放在美联储的资金--也就是存放在银行系统以外的资金--跃升了5000亿美元。

For those lacking a banking licence, leaving money in the repo facility is a better bet than leaving it in a bank.

对于那些没有银行执照的机构来说，把钱留在回购工具里比把钱放在银行里更好。

Not only is the yield considerably higher, but there is simply no reason to worry about the Fed going bust.

不仅收益率高得多，而且根本没有理由担心美联储会破产。

Money-market funds could in effect become “narrow banks”: institutions that back consumer deposits with central-bank reserves, rather than higher-return but riskier assets.

货币市场基金实际上可能变成“狭义银行”：用央行储备支持消费者存款的机构，而不是高回报高风险的资产。

A narrow bank cannot make loans to firms or write mortgages. Nor can it go bust.

狭义银行不能向公司发放贷款，也不能发放抵押贷款。它也不会破产。

The Fed has long been sceptical of such institutions, fretting that they would undermine banks.

长期以来，美联储一直对此类机构持怀疑态度，担心它们会削弱银行。

In 2019 officials denied TNB USA, a startup aiming to create a narrow bank, a licence.

2019年，官员们拒绝了给TNB USA发放执照，这是一家想要创建狭义银行的初创公司。

A similar concern has been raised about opening the Fed’s balance-sheet to money-market funds.

对于向货币市场基金开放美联储的资产负债表，人们也提出了类似的担忧。

When the reverse-repo facility was set up, Bill Dudley, then the president of the New York Fed, worried it could lead to the “disintermediation of the financial system”.

当逆回购工具设立时，时任纽约联邦储备银行行长的比尔·达德利担心，逆回购工具可能导致“金融体系的非中介化”。

During a financial crisis it could exacerbate instability with funds running out of riskier assets and onto the Fed’s balance-sheet.

在金融危机期间，这可能会加剧不稳定，因为资金会从风险较高的资产逃入美联储的资产负债表。

There is no sign yet of a dramatic rush.

目前还没有戏剧性的狂奔迹象。

For now, the banking system is dealing with a slow bleed.

目前，银行系统正在应对缓慢的资金流失。

But deposits are growing scarcer as the system is squeezed--and America’s small and midsized banks could pay the price.

但随着金融体系受到挤压，存款在变得越来越稀缺--美国的中小型银行可能会为此付出代价。

来源：经济学人