In a Federal Reserve Bank of New York staff report, Rodney Garratt, Antoine Martin, James McAndrews and Ed Nosal argue in favor of “Segregated Balance Accounts” (SBAs):
SBAs are accounts that a bank or depository institution (DI) could establish at its Federal Reserve Bank using funds borrowed from a lender. … the funds deposited in an SBA would be fully segregated from the other assets of the bank … only the lender of the funds could initiate a transfer out of an SBA; consequently, the borrowing bank could not use the reserves that fund an SBA for any purpose other than paying back the lender. … the loan made by the lender to the bank would be collateralized by the reserve balances in the SBA account.
The authors argue that SBAs could foster competition in money markets and
help strengthen the floor on overnight interest rates that is created by the payment of interest on excess reserves.
The proposal is related to topics I discussed in previous blog posts:
- Narrow banking proposals.
- Reserves for Everyone—Towards a New Monetary Regime.
- Reserves for Everyone—Towards a New Monetary Regime, Vox.
- Notenbankgeld für Alle?, NZZ.
- Sovereign Money in Iceland?
- Reserves for All.