Don’t fully understand but why does ECB not take the cash and tell banks to give it to other banks and give a guarantee as will have to anyway - thats what my genius is suggesting
Yup, this is what I was saying elsewhere about a reserve deposit scheme for the Fed being tacked onto the bailout bill. Banks don’t have anywhere safe to put their money so they are putting it in the ECB. British banks are doing the same thing with the BoE. Typically, the reserve deposit rate is 1% below the lombard rate, so banks are losing money by doing this. The risk/reward calculation of the banks with money is that the rest of the banking system is too risky for them to put their money into it.
Banks would still put their money in. The rate on short-term US treasury bonds went negative last week - that means that somone was paying to keep their money in treasuries. That is like having your money on deposit and paying someone for the privilege. In fact, what it is like is locking your money is a storage box and paying fort knox to keep it for you.