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Re:Why America will soon see a wave of bank mergers by bradleyjg on Tuesday May 02, 2023 @12:46PM (#35790377)
That’s still positive. If they want no risk, that number needs to be negative to cover the costs of holding and moving money around.
Re:Why America will soon see a wave of bank mergers by runnerup on Tuesday May 02, 2023 @12:51PM (#35790487)
It really doesn’t. They charge plenty of fees to plenty of customers. They also use daily banking as a loss-leader for profitable services like loans.

Chase collected $1.25 billion in overdraft fees alone last year. My “Chase College” account currently gets charged $6/month for some reason I haven’t bothered figuring out, maybe a newly instated minimum balance or direct deposit requirement that wasn’t there years ago.

Re:Why America will soon see a wave of bank mergers by bradleyjg on Tuesday May 02, 2023 @01:23PM (#35791052)
Great, so if it really doesn’t already, let’s just get rid of the pretense. Make it illegal to offer demand deposits while taking risks with depositors’ funds. No more need to worry about bank runs.
Re:Why America will soon see a wave of bank mergers by winkeltripel on Tuesday May 02, 2023 @03:16PM (#35792711)
It's almost like the glass-steagal act had a good approach for the average person.
Re:Why America will soon see a wave of bank mergers by lesuorac on Tuesday May 02, 2023 @12:57PM (#35790621)
Eh, this really seems like moving the goal posts.

The problem with SVB &other is not that they fundamentally were losing money. They just weren't making _enough_ money so they took on additional risk. If SVB hedged the IRR they wouldn't have gone bankrupt; they just would've had less profit.

The banks people want are technically feasible.

Re:Why America will soon see a wave of bank mergers by bradleyjg on Tuesday May 02, 2023 @01:03PM (#35790735)
There’s no way to provide risk free returns on demand deposits, other than the government just deciding to give away money. Hedging doesn’t magically eliminate risk at zero cost.
Re:Why America will soon see a wave of bank mergers by lesuorac on Tuesday May 02, 2023 @02:01PM (#35791690)
Sure, in the technically true way.

However, in practical terms banks have done a great job of making loans that get repaid more often than not. People are ok with having a bank that pays 0% interest and uses the difference between loan's rate and the real rate to operate successfully; bankers are not ok with leaving money on the table.