Advantages And Disadvantages Of Central Bank

For centuries, banks have relied on fractional reserve banking. This is the method in which only a fraction of a bank’s deposits are actually backed by a reserve of cash-on-hand, available for immediate withdrawal. This procedure allows the bank more capital to lend and at the same time, grows the economy. The reserve amounts are determined by a ratio stipulated by the Federal Reserve. In theory, fractional reserve banking works most of the time. However, in difficult economic times, people have demanded to withdraw

The Federal Reserve uses two other types of tools besides the open market operations (OMO), and they are the discount rates and reserve requirements. The FOMC is responsible for the OMO and the discount rate and reserve requirements are taken care by the Federal Reserve System’s Board of Governors. The three fundamental tools can influenced the demand and supply of and the balances that depository institution hold which can result in the change in federal funds rate.

Targeting interest rates that can directly control inflation. The monetary policy is one that quickly comes into play. Central banks are independent of the government and refrain from political influence. They can boost exports by merely weakening the currency. The benefits of the fiscal policy consist of direct spending to specific purposes, by using taxation they can discourage negative externalities, and have a shorter time lag. The potential costs of the policies can create budget deficits, having to spend tax incentives on imports, and may be motivated by politics.The use of the monetary policy runs the risk of hyperinflation, the time it takes for the effects to materialize, the technical limitations and the fact that financial tools affect the entire

Interest rates are generally determined by the market, but government intervention - usually by a central bank- may strongly influence short-term interest rates, and is used as the main tool of monetary policy. The central bank offers to buy or sell money at the desired rate and, due to their control of certain tools (such as, in many countries, the ability to print money) they are able to influence overall market interest rates.

If the economy suffers from inflation, the Government will like to check it. Then its Central Bank should adopt tight or contractionary monetary policy. To control inflation the Central Bank of a country can reduce money supply through open market operations by selling bonds or government securities in the open market and in return gets currency funds from those who buy the bonds. In this way liquidity in the banking system can be reduced.

For centuries, banks have relied on fractional reserve banking. This is the method in which only a fraction of a bank’s deposits are actually backed by a reserve of cash-on-hand, available for immediate withdrawal. This procedure allows the bank more capital to lend and at the same time, grows the economy. The reserve amounts are determined by a ratio stipulated by the Federal Reserve. In theory, fractional reserve banking works most of the time. However, in difficult economic times, people have demanded to withdraw their money

The American Banking system has always focused on order, resiliency and the ability to withstand the storm. When comparing banking systems, it is required analyze both the strengths and the weaknesses of each system. While examining the American banking system, a key strength that is presented is the pride if its resiliency, “these improvements in the resiliency of the banking system have been reinforced by a series of key capital and liquidity rules that have been enacted in the United States, including the Basel III capital and liquidity frameworks as adopted in more stringent form” (The State of American Banking).

In most countries, commercial banks’ reserve accounts with the central bank must have a positive balance at the end of every day; in some countries, the amount is specifically set as a proportion of the liabilities a bank have that is on its customers. This is known as a reserve requirement. At the end of every day, a commercial bank will have to examine the status of their reserve accounts. Those that are in deficit have the option of borrowing the required funds from the central bank, where they may be charged a lending rate which is also referred to as the discount rates on the amount they borrow. In a balanced system, where there are just enough total reserves for all the banks to meet requirements, the short-term interbank lending rate will be in between the support rate and the discount rate. Both the Treasury and the central bank are involved in these reserve management operations to maintain interest rate stability (Palley, 2012). This applies to the relationship between the Central Bank of Kenya and its regulatory requirement to maintain a capping that is below 14%. CBK finances commercial banks at much lower rate on their borrowing so that the banks can fix their interest charges on borrowed money at certain percentage that must not exceed the limit set by the

current debt). If you run out of cash because your sales are unexpectedly weak, an Emergency Loan will

In this framework, the loss of liquidity is the result of a market failure, and if the central bank can solve that failure by lending, the result should be an unambiguous social good. After all, central banks are designed to create liquidity and, in the spirit of the classical doctrine of the LOLR (Bagehot, 1873), they should respond forcefully in a crisis. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke described the crisis lending as nothing new and noted that “We did what central banks have done for many years and what they were designed to do: We served as a source of liquidity and stability in financial markets, and, in the broader economy, we worked to foster economic recovery and price stability.”6 Moreover, in the recent crisis, despite a massive loan book that included loans to institutions well outside its traditional network of depository institutions, the Federal Reserve had zero defaults or even delinquencies on those loans even though the crisis proceeded in several increasingly severe waves. While it is never possible to know what could have happened if the situation had worsened further, that all these loans were repaid underscores the important role of liquidity in driving the crisis and raises the question of why liquidity regulations are necessary at all as long as there are sufficiently robust capital

Intervention by the central bank is warranted to avoid welfare loss for the institution’s stakeholders since it may be that due to access to supervisory information, the authorities are in a better position to evaluate the financial position of a bank rather than the inter-bank market. The other situation in which the central bank may be the LOLR is when the stability of the entire financial system may be threatened following the failure of a solvent bank. This widespread financial instability may put to risk the ability of the financial system to carry out its primary functions.

These banks should ideally be divested of any sort of commercial interest, and must act in the best interest of its nation’s economic stability. A lot of meaning is carried out in being identified as ‘independent’ authority, where the bank possess powers to take its own decisions, approve its own legislature, follow its own policies and offer stability to the nation’s economy.

The decline of market liquidity following the Lehman collapse made it difficult for banks to sell assets to meet unexpected withdrawals. At

This involves buying or selling financial instruments like bonds in exchange of money to be deposited with the central bank. By selling the financial instruments, the central bank mops up the cash in circulation. On the other hand, selling injects money thus increasing the supply of money (Bernanke 2006).

Following the crisis of Fannie Mae and Freddie Macin Summer 2007, which is the beginning of the financial crisis of 2008, John et al (2012) find that Bank of England kept on providing liquidity to banks and making an exchange between high-quality assets and Treasury Bills through liquidity support operations and financial innovations which were also used by many other central banks. Adopting this approach means that Bank of England can make the financial sectors more easily to receive financing on such circumstance (Joyce