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Re:FTX Tapped into Customer Accounts to Fund Risky Bets, Set... by zarzavat on Friday November 11, 2022 @01:38AM (#33557940)
The bank has a balance sheet of assets and liabilities. When you deposit money, that’s a bank liability. When you take a loan, that’s a bank asset.

If some people don’t pay back their loans, then that loan gets written down, so the bank has fewer assets than before. A certain level of default is expected and baked into their operations.

If many people don’t pay back their loans, the bank no longer as as many assets as it expected. But it still has as many liabilities. The value of the bank will decrease, potentially to nothing.

As the grandparent notes, banks are subject to special requirements in law that define how much capital the bank needs to have to remain solvent. If the bank is no longer solvent then it can’t cover the liabilities (deposits).

In that case either the government will step in to bail the bank out, or the bank will collapse and the depositors will have to be paid from a deposit insurance scheme.

Re:FTX Tapped into Customer Accounts to Fund Risky Bets, Set... by ravel-bar-foo on Friday November 11, 2022 @05:49AM (#33559163)
I'm a bit confused here. I understand that depositing money creates a liability for the bank in the sense that money (and interest thereupon) may be withdrawn at any point... but until the depositor withdraws, isn't the actual cash that has been deposited in an account an "asset," in the sense that it is on the bank's books?