Readings in Money and Banking: Selected and AdaptedPhillips, Chester Arthur
General
Readings in Money and Banking: Selected and Adapted
Phillips, Chester Arthur
Banks and banking; Banks and banking -- United States; Money
transferred perhaps in smaller fragments to the deposits of other banks;
and as long as your loan is outstanding there will be a deposit against
it in the books of one bank or another, unless, as is most unlikely, it
is used for the withdrawal of coin or notes; and even then the coin and
notes are probably paid into some other bank, and become a deposit
again; and so we come back to our original conclusion that your
borrowing of L1,050 has increased the sum of banking deposits, as a
whole, by that amount.
The same reasoning applies whenever a bank makes a loan, whatever be the
collateral, or pledge deposited by the borrower, whether Stock Exchange
securities, as in the case cited, or bales of cotton or tons of copper;
or, again, whenever it discounts a bill. In each case it gives the
borrower or the seller of the bill a credit in its books--in other
words, a deposit; and though this deposit is probably--almost
certainly--transferred to another bank, the sum of banking deposits is
thereby increased, and remains so, as long as the loans are in
existence. And so it appears that the loans of one bank make the
deposits of others, and its deposits consist largely of other banks'
loans....
RELATION BETWEEN RESERVES AND DEMAND LIABILITIES AGAIN
[36]... a bank must so regulate its loans and note issues as to keep on
hand a sufficient cash reserve, and thus prevent insufficiency of cash
from ... threatening. It can regulate the reserve by alternately selling
securities for cash and loaning cash on securities. The more the loans
in proportion to the cash on hand, the greater the profits, but the
greater the danger also. In the long run a bank maintains its necessary
reserve by means of adjusting the interest rate charged for loans. If it
has few loans and a reserve large enough to support loans of much
greater volume, it will endeavor to extend its loans by lowering the
rate of interest. If its loans are large and it fears too great demands
on the reserve, it will restrict the loans by a high interest charge.
Thus, by alternately raising and lowering interest, a bank keeps its
loans within the sum which the reserve can support, but endeavors to
keep them (for the sake of profit) as high as the reserve will support.
If the sums owed to individual depositors are large, relatively to the
total liabilities, the reserve should be proportionately large, since
the action of a small number of depositors can deplete it rapidly.
Similarly, the reserves should be larger against fluctuating deposits
(as of stock brokers) or those known to be temporary. The reserve in a
large city of great bank activity needs to be greater in proportion to
its demand liabilities than in a small town with infrequent banking
transactions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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