Daylight Overdrafts Research Articles

Interest on reserves, settlement, and the effectiveness of monetary policy

Over the last several years, the Federal Reserve has conducted a series of large scale asset purchases. The effectiveness of these purchases is dependent on the monetary transmission mechanism. Former Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke argued that large scale asset purchases are effective because they induce portfolio reallocations that ultimately lead to changes in economic activity. Despite these claims, a large fraction of the expansion of the monetary base is held as excess reserves by commercial banks. Concurrent with the large scale asset purchases, the Federal Reserve began paying interest on reserves and enacted changes in its Payment System Risk policy. In this paper, I estimate the effect of the payment of interest on reserves (as well as other payment policy changes) on the demand for daylight overdrafts through Fedwire. Since Fedwire provides overdrafts at a fixed price, any fluctuation in the quantity of overdrafts is a change in demand. A reduction in overdrafts corresponds with an increase in the demand for reserves. I show that the payment of interest on reserves has had a negative and statistically significant effect on daylight overdrafts. Furthermore, I interpret these results in light of recent theoretical work. I argue that by paying an interest rate on excess reserves that is higher than comparable short term rates, the Federal Reserve likely hindered the portfolio reallocation channel outlined by Bernanke. Thus, the payment of interest on reserves increased payment processing efficiency, potentially at the expense of limiting the ability of monetary policy to influence economic activity.

The Political Economy of the Federal Reserve's New Operating Framework

The Federal Reserve’s interest rate policy was insufficient, on its own, to achieve the Federal Reserve’s goals during the recent financial crisis. Acquiring the legal authority to pay interest on reserves allowed the Federal Reserve to implement monetary policy using a floor system and thereby divorce interest rate policy from balance sheet policy. Although the floor system entails immediate benefits, such as eliminating the implicit tax on reserves and reducing the credit risk associated with daylight overdrafts, the remote effects include potentially large costs. More specifically, the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet policies may reduce longer-run economic growth and risk the institution’s independence. To maintain the floor system’s present benefits, the Federal Reserve should therefore continue to implement interest rate policy through interest on reserves. To protect against the floor system’s future costs, the Federal Reserve should, however, restrict its balance sheet policy to Bagehot’s principles for last-resort lending.

Settlement Liquidity and Monetary Policy Implementation Lessons from the Financial Crisis

The U.S. dollar clearing and settlement system received little attention during the recent financial crisis, mainly because it performed reliably, processing record volumes and values of trades made in stressed financial markets. This article shows how Federal Reserve policy measures aimed at providing liquidity and stability to the financial system during and after the crisis had a major impact on settlement liquidity and thus on the efficiency of clearing and settlement system activity. The measures led to a substantial decrease in daylight overdrafts extended by the Federal Reserve and a quickening of settlement relative to the pre-crisis period. The decrease in daylight overdrafts reduced credit risk for the Federal Reserve and the earlier time at which payments settled suggests important efficiency gains as well as diminished operational risks. Interestingly, both improvements were the focus of the revisions to the Federal Reserve’s Payment System Risk policy, adopted in late 2008 and implemented in March 2011. To a large extent, the desired outcome had been achieved ahead of the policy change. The authors explain that as the amount of reserves available to the banking system and the opportunity cost of holding such reserves are at the center of any framework for implementing monetary policy, the recent experience offers important lessons for policy going forward.

Why Does the Interest Rate Decline Over the Day? Evidence from the Liquidity Crisis

We provide a simple model, able to explain why the overnight (ON) rate follows a downward intraday pattern, implicitly creating a positive intraday interest rate. While this normally reflects only some frictions, a liquidity crisis introduces a new component: the chance of an upward jump of the ON rate, which must be compensated by an intraday decline of the ON rate. By analyzing real time data for the e-MID interbank market, we show that the intraday rate has increased from a negligible level to a significant one after the start of the liquidity crisis in August 2007, and even more so since September 2008. The intraday rate is affected by the likelihood of a dry-up of the ON market, proxied by the 3M Euribor—Eonia swap spread. This evidence supports our model and it shows that a liquidity crisis impairs the ability of central banks to curb the market price of intraday liquidity, even by providing free daylight overdrafts. Such results have implications for the efficiency of the money market and of payment systems, as well as for the operational framework of central banks.

Statement of the Financial Economists Roundtable: How to Manage and Help to Avoid Systemic Liquidity Risk

In the summer of 2010, when legislative and regulatory responses were being finalized to address financial institution and market liquidity problems, the Financial Economists Roundtable, a group of prominent financial economists over 50 years old, convened with the aim of developing principles that would address both market‐wide and institution‐specific liquidity problems exposed by the 2007–2008 financial crisis. As summarized in this statement, the eight principles that came out of this meeting should be used to assess the strengths and weakness of not only the Dodd‐Frank legislation that was passed, but also of the regulatory proposals to implement the law as they continue to emerge.Among the eight principles endorsed, the Roundtable urges regulators to seek to ensure that: the failures of large complex institutions are independent events so as to minimize spillover effects; the interdependence of capital and liquidity requirements is recognized; such requirements are flexible and cost‐effective; central banks continue to provide lender‐of‐last‐resort lending against sound collateral; and the disclosure of institutions' risk exposures is timely and transparent. The Roundtable also concluded that the crisis revealed critical weaknesses in the tri‐party repo market, and recommended consideration of reforms to the market that include moving such transactions to organized exchanges, and reducing dependence on the two private sector financial institutions that operate that market's infrastructure. Additional useful reforms would include limiting daylight overdrafts, imposing margin requirements on counterparties to limit systemic risk and prohibiting re‐hypothecation. Finally, the Roundtable believes that improved transparency of transactions and prices would enhance monitoring by responsible regulatory agencies.

The Intraday Interest Rate under a Liquidity Crisis: The Case of August 2007

By analyzing high frequency data for the European interbank market, we show that the intraday interest rate (implicitly defined by the term structure of the ON rate) jumped by more than ten times at the outset of the financial turmoil in August 2007, resulting in an inefficiency of the money market. This took place despite the provision of unlimited free daylight overdrafts by the ECB, on a collateralized basis. We suggest that such result may be attributed to an increase of the liquidity premium and of the cost of collateral.

Transactions, credit, and central banking in a model of segmented markets

A segmented markets model is constructed in which transactions are conducted using credit and currency. Goods market segmentation plays an important role, in addition to the role played by conventional segmentation of asset markets. An important novelty of the paper is to show how the nonneutralities of money and their persistence depend on the nature of goods market transactions and on the arrangements for clearing and settlement of consumer credit. The model permits open market operations, daylight overdrafts, reserve-holding, and overnight lending and borrowing, allowing the consideration of a rich array of central banking arrangements and their implications.

An Economic Perspective on the Enforcement of Credit Arrangements: The Case of Daylight Overdrafts in Fedwire

A fundamental concern for any lender is credit risk-the risk that a borrower will fail to fully repay a loan as expected. Thus, lenders want credit arrangements that are designed to compensate them for - and help them effectively manage - this type of risk. In certain situations, central banks engage in credit arrangements as lenders to banks, so they must manage their exposure to credit risk. This article discusses how the Federal Reserve manages its credit risk exposure associated with daylight overdrafts. The authors first present a simple economic framework for thinking about the causes of credit risk and the possible tools that lenders have to help them manage it. They then apply this framework to the Federal Reserve's Payments System Risk policy, which specifies the use of a variety of tools to manage credit risk. The study also analyzes a possible increase in the use of collateral as a credit risk management tool, as presented in a recent proposal by the Federal Reserve concerning changes to the Payments System Risk policy.

Payments systems and monetary policy

A dynamic spatial model is constructed where there is a role for money and for centralized payments arrangements, and where there are aggregate fluctuations driven by fluctuations in aggregate productivity. With decentralized monetary exchange and no centralized payments arrangements, there is price level indeterminacy, and the equilibrium allocation is inefficient. A private clearinghouse arrangement improves efficiency but produces a real indeterminacy. The pricing of daylight overdrafts is irrelevant for the equilibrium allocation. Efficiency is achieved with a zero nominal interest rate on overnight central bank lending, or through private overnight interbank lending.

The Evolution of the Federal Reserve's Intraday Credit Policies

One of the Federal Reserve's roles is to provide payment services to depository institutions and to the U.S. Treasury. Many of the nation's transfers of funds--whether they are large-dollar payments for financial market transactions or small-value business and consumer payments--settle through depository institutions' accounts held at the Federal Reserve for reserve-maintenance purposes and transaction processing. If a depository institution has insufficient balances during the day to cover its debits, it will run a negative balance or "daylight overdraft" in its Federal Reserve account until sufficient funds are received later in the day. Because depository institutions generally hold a relatively small amount of funds overnight in their Federal Reserve accounts in relation to the trillions of dollars of payments processed by the Federal Reserve each day, the Federal Reserve extends intraday credit to ensure the smooth functioning of the U.S. payment system. To reduce the risks that depository institutions present to the Federal Reserve through their use of daylight credit and to address the risks that payment systems, in general, present to the banking system and other sectors of the economy, the Federal Reserve Board in 1985 developed a payments system risk (PSR) policy. One of the primary goals of the PSR policy is to control depository institutions' use of Federal Reserve intraday credit, and as the policy has evolved, the Board has adopted specific methods for controlling daylight overdrafts. The history of the Board's PSR policy, trends in daylight overdraft and payment activity, and a possible future policy direction are discussed in this article.

Central bank policy making in competing payment systems

This paper analyzes the interaction between two payment systems. Administrators of both systems establish intraday credit interest fees, caps, and collateral requirements. Analysis of the model indicates that if a central bank does not take into account the effects that its policies have on its share of payment system transactions, then its efforts to contain risks associated with daylight overdrafts on its wire system will require a loss in its share of total transactions volume. If it does recognize the potential loss in its share of payments, then socially optimal policy instrument settings are unlikely to emerge.

Wholesale Payments and Financial Discipline, Efficiency, and Liquidity

Properly designed wholesale payments system can make a significant contribution to enhancing market discipline in the financial sector, reducing the risk of systemic disturbance and permitting a less extensive safety net for financial institutions. The objective of these reforms has been to achieve a reduction of the credit risk associated with the growth in intraday credit exposures that arises in net settlement systems and in real-time gross systems when the central bank provides daylight overdrafts. Intraday payments-related credit in net settlement systems has been reduced by restructuring payment systems into real-time gross settlement systems with collateralized overdrafts, while in the existing real-time gross settlement systems, the risk-abatement program currently in effect has taken the form of caps and charges on uncollateralized daylight credit.

Wholesale Payments and Financial Discipline, Efficiency, and Liquidity

Properly designed wholesale payments system can make a significant contribution to enhancing market discipline in the financial sector, reducing the risk of systemic disturbance and permitting a less extensive safety net for financial institutions. The objective of these reforms has been to achieve a reduction of the credit risk associated with the growth in intraday credit exposures that arises in net settlement systems and in real-time gross systems when the central bank provides daylight overdrafts. Intraday payments-related credit in net settlement systems has been reduced by restructuring payment systems into real-time gross settlement systems with collateralized overdrafts, while in the existing real-time gross settlement systems, the risk-abatement program currently in effect has taken the form of caps and charges on uncollateralized daylight credit.

Intraday Management of Bank Reserves: The Effects of Caps and Fees on Daylight Overdrafts

The Federal Reserve System imposes caps and charges fees on the negative intraday balances in banks' reserve accounts. i.e., on daylight overdrafts. Our empirical results suggest that caps alone did little to reduce daylight overdrafts in the aggregate. By contrast, the 1994 imposition of fees reduced the average daily maximum overdraft on the Fedwire system by about $93 billion and the average aggregate overdraft at any time during the day by about $43 billion. We also found statistical evidence that higher beginning-of-day reserve balances, lower aggregate dollar values of securities-related transfers over Fedwire, and lower shares of banks' assets funded with federal funds and repurchase agreements reduced daylight overdrafts. Copyright 1996 by Ohio State University Press.

Comment on Intraday Bank Reserve Management: The Effects of Caps and Fees on Daylight Overdrafts

The purpose of the Hancock and Wilcox paper is to determine the effects that imposing net debit caps and the pricing of daylight overdrafts (DOs) may have had on Fedwire overdrafts. This assessment covers both funds transfer and book-entry (U.S. government) security transfer daylight overdraftsl. As such, this paper represents the first in depth assessment of the effects of the Federal Reserve's payment risk reduction policy.2

The Reform of Wholesale Payment Systems and its Impact on Financial Markets

This paper reviews the ongoing efforts to reduce the risks inherent in the world`s principal wholesale payment systems. The paper assesses the major policy proposals to contain the growth in intraday credit exposures that arises in net settlement wholesale payment systems and in the real-time gross systems in which the central bank provides daylight overdrafts. It also discusses the benefits of these risk-management policies, and we assess the adverse impact of applying interest charges for intraday central-bank credit or of collateralizing such credit on liquidity in financial markets.

The Reform of Wholesale Payment Systems and its Impacton Financial Markets

This paper reviews the ongoing efforts to reduce the risks inherent in the world’s principal wholesale payment systems. The paper assesses the major policy proposals to contain the growth in intraday credit exposures that arises in net settlement wholesale payment systems and in the real-time gross systems in which the central bank provides daylight overdrafts. It also discusses the benefits of these risk-management policies, and we assess the adverse impact of applying interest charges for intraday central-bank credit or of collateralizing such credit on liquidity in financial markets.

Bank behavior, interest rate determination, and monetary policy in a financial system with an intraday federal funds market

This paper has two purposes. One is to construct a formal model of the determination of and relationships between interest rates on funds with 24-hour, overnight, and intraday terms. The second is to use this model to examine the likely effects of alternative Federal Reserve proposals for addressing the issue of intraday extension of Federal Reserve credit in the form of daylight overdrafts of bank reserve accounts. It is demonstrated that present proposals all entail potentially significant drawbacks for monetary policy.