Where’s the money?

Posted on

It’s interesting to note what is happening in banking as the financial crisis develops. The Bank of England has noted the following for the third quarter of 2009:

External liabilities of banks and building societies operating in the UK fell by $86.9 billion during Q3 2009. The largest fall in deposits was reported by Offshore Centres, driven by the Bahamas, Jersey and the Cayman Islands. Liabilities to Developed Countries also decreased, driven by Germany and Japan. Liabilities to Developing Countries also fell, driven by a fall in deposits from Qatar.

During Q3 2009, external claims of banks and building societies operating in the UK fell by $136.8 billion. The largest fall in claims was reported on Developed Countries, driven by Switzerland, Germany and Spain. Claims on Offshore Centres increased, more than accounted for by increases reported against West Indies UK and the Cayman Islands. Claims on Developing Countries decreased, more than accounted for by a fall in claims on Russia.

This is reflected in this table:

Note liabilities to offshore centres were much higher than assets located in them. But note the trend: deposits from these places (liabilities for the banks) are falling steadily. Loans to them rose in tow out of three quarters, although fell over all.

Note though that in both cases the sum is way ahead of engagement with developing countries, whilst deposits from offshore centres are more than 25% of those from developed countries. The significance of these places remains high. Also note, somewhere someone has a list of who they are. This is clear from the following detailed table of movements:

Odd that money was leaving those places looking like they were in most financial trouble. Not hard to fathom that out.

This may be data worth monitoring in future.


Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:

You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.

And if you would like to support this blog you can, here: