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Lender Of Last Resort Essay

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The Lender of Last Resort
1. What is the Lender of Last Resort (LOLR)?
The term “Lender of Last Resort” stems from the French phrase “dernier ressort”. The first recorded use of the term Lender of Last Resort originates from a document called “Observations on the Establishment of the Bank of England” written in 1797 by Sir Francis Baring in which he refers to the Bank of England the function of “dernier ressort”.
The Lender of Last Resort is ordinarily a country’s central bank. It offers loans to financial institutions (including commercial banks) that encounter financial difficulties or are near bankruptcy. In other words, The Lender of Last Resort provides liquidity to otherwise illiquid or insolvent financial institutions that can’t meet …show more content…

Among saving possible failing financial institutions, other goals of this institution includes preventing possible panic from spreading to the populace, preventing possible bank runs from happening also avoiding bankruptcy spreading from one bank to another due to liquidity issues.
Possible scenarios in which the Lender of Last Resort is needed in order to help or save commercial institutions include financial crises, bank runs (when a substantial number of people withdraw their deposits or demand exchanging their deposits into government bonds or precious metals) or bank panics (when many bank runs occur in a short period of time).
2. Worldwide Lenders of Last Resort
The function of Lender of Last Resort differs from country to country. One of the most used financial institution as the Lender of Last Resort is the central bank.
In the USA for example, the Lender of Last Resort is represented by the Federal Reserve. The main purpose of the Federal Reserve is to help provide liquidity to financial institutions that are illiquid, at the point of bankruptcy and to stop illiquid banks to start bank panics.
In the United Kingdom, the Bank of England serves as the Lender of Last Resort whilst in New Zealand we have the Reserve Bank of New Zealand which acts as the central bank and Lender of Last

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