More than $114 billion exited the biggest U.S. banks this
month, and nobody’s quite sure why.
The Fed releases data on the assets and liabilities of
commercial banks every Friday. The most current figures, covering the first
full week of 2013, show the largest one-week withdrawals since the Sept. 11,
2001, attacks. Even when seasonally adjusted, the level drops to $52.8
billion—still the third-highest amount on record, and one for which bank
experts and analysts were reluctant to give a definitive explanation.
The most obvious culprit is the expiration of the Transaction
Account Guarantee program, the extraordinary federal effort to shore up the
country’s non-gigantic banks during the 2008 financial crisis. Big banks were
considered “too big to fail,” while smaller ones were vulnerable to runs. The
TAG program backstopped their deposit bases by temporarily offering unlimited
insurance on money kept in non-interest-bearing accounts. That guarantee ended
on Dec. 31, so a decrease in deposits would be expected first thing in January.
But hold on: The Fed data show $114 billion leaving the 25
biggest banks—about 2 percent of their deposit base. Only $26.9 billion left
all the others, equivalent to 0.9 percent of their deposit base
