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Overview of fractional reserve banking

Central banks create money by printing it or making electronic money. They put money into circulation by buying securities, like government debt. Banks use fractional reserve lending, keeping a portion of deposits and lending the rest. This process multiplies the money in the economy. Checks help money move without being withdrawn. Created by Sal Khan.

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  • aqualine ultimate style avatar for user Wilson, J. M.
    -Why when the banks are giving loans to the following banks does their money 'in-house' not become reduced to 1$? I don't understand why 3$ could physically turn into 6$ if no more dollars were printed. (conservation of mass?)
    (17 votes)
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    • blobby green style avatar for user Ted Wagner
      If Bank A lends to Bank B, Bank A gets to claim that owed money as an asset on it's books as does Bank B because it actually has the money or its electronic equivalent. So, for example, if you have 100 dollars, and you loan your buddy 50 dollars, you can say you have 100 dollars in assets ( the 50 you have and the 50 you are owed) and your buddy can say he has 50 dollars in assets. The total is now 150 dollars. Then your buddy lends 25 dollars to his mom. He can claim 50 dollars in assets ( 25 in hand and 25 owed) and his mom can claim she has 25 dollars. The total is now your 100, your buddy's 50, and his mom's 25 for a total of 175 dollars that everybody says they "have" from the original 100. Of course it is really 100, but the key is that everybody is now acting(spending) like they have money and this drives the economy. If your buddy and his mom would have waited until they actually had un-borrowed money to spend, the thought is that the economy would suffer from inactivity.
      (81 votes)
  • piceratops ultimate style avatar for user Girl on Fire
    @ Sal said 'they go out into the open market and buy securities' what exactly are 'securities'? He has mentioned them several times in other videos, and I still don't know what they are.
    (20 votes)
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    • male robot hal style avatar for user doohyeun
      when someone or a company buys bonds, they are essentially lending out money. the bonds are certificates that guarantee repayment of your money that you invested to buy the bond, along with a pre-determined interest. securities are any tradable assets, such as stocks, banknotes, etc. Bonds are one type of security.
      (20 votes)
  • old spice man green style avatar for user Jason
    Fractional reserve banking increases the money supply by lending out the money multiple times over -- so doesn't this by nature result in debt (that cannot be paid back) and/or inflation.
    (7 votes)
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    • spunky sam blue style avatar for user robartsd
      The principle and interest can be paid back because the interest paid to depositors, operating costs of the bank, and profits all have a path back into the economy. Fractional reserve banking facilitates an increase in the velocity of money; as such it does impact inflation. The bank's cash reserve limit and the limits of banking technology prevent the velocity of money from increasing indefinitely. The choices of all agents in the economy to spend, save, or borrow determine the actual velocity of money.
      (2 votes)
  • leaf green style avatar for user wayne deneff
    @2.05 I want to see if I understand this. The government will buy securities and the newly created money used to buy these securities then enters the economy as "new money". So when the government collects on the security at its maturation that money will be government revenue? Is there a reason that the government cannot just add the newly created money into its programs as additional revenue?
    (3 votes)
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    • ohnoes default style avatar for user Tejas
      You are confusing the government with the central bank. The government sells securities in order to raise money for its programs. The central bank then buys those securities and the money used will enter the economy. At maturation, the government pays the owner of the security (the central bank) back the principal and some interest. That money will go out of the economy, but fortunately (maybe?) the central bank can buy newer government securities. This will continue to work as long as the government is in debt.
      (3 votes)
  • hopper cool style avatar for user Emily S.
    Are the banks required to keep only a certain amount on reserve and lend out the rest, or can they hold on to all of it if they want?
    (2 votes)
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    • male robot hal style avatar for user Andrew M
      They don't have to lend, but they want to, otherwise they are paying interest to depositors and they are not earning any interest on the money they have not lent out. So, typically what they will do with money they have not lent to individuals is to lend it to the US government by buying treasury bonds.
      (5 votes)
  • leaf blue style avatar for user mbreach
    So if everyone were to go any try to withdraw all of their money at once, would our entire economy collapse entirely?
    (2 votes)
    Default Khan Academy avatar avatar for user
    • male robot hal style avatar for user Andrew M
      Yes, pretty much. That's called a bank run, and that's why we have deposit insurance and it's also why the Fed can lend money to banks that are short on reserves, as a last resort.

      With deposit insurance, there is no reason for everyone to try to withdraw money all at once, since they are guaranteed to be able to get their money at any time. And if too many withdrawals do occur, the Fed can step in and make unlimited loans to banks so that they can cover the withdrawals. Bank runs were common before we had deposit insurance and the Fed. Now they are unheard of (in the US).
      (3 votes)
  • male robot hal style avatar for user David Kraemer
    How does the Dodd-Frank Act affect this model?
    (3 votes)
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  • blobby green style avatar for user laihuaqing
    Now we know the true reason of ATM withdrawl limits per day.
    (3 votes)
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  • blobby green style avatar for user Susan Shepherd
    The check writing example seemed to say that the apple buyer's $1 never leaves the bank. But when the apple seller, who now owns that $1, cashes the check the $1 will leave the bank. I don't understand how the checking system creates money, doesn't it just reassign ownership of the $1?
    (2 votes)
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    • ohnoes default style avatar for user Tejas
      The $1 doesn't leave the bank with the written check. When the apple seller goes to cash the check, the bank doesn't normally just give the seller the $1. The bank most often transfers the $1 from the buyer's checking account to the seller's account, but keeps the $1, most of which it may have given out as a loan.
      (1 vote)
  • blobby green style avatar for user Fernando
    At , what would happen if the person wanted to pay for the apple with dollar bills or coins, instead of a check?
    (2 votes)
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    • blobby green style avatar for user apetunin
      One would be paid in cash by the bank from its reserve providing there is enough money to pay out. If there isn't and the bank is unable to find the cash elsewhere it would be breaching its own T&Cs. At this point it may be declared bankrupt. The person would get one's money back, usually up to around 100k Euros in the EU, providing the bank was backed by a deposit guarantee scheme.
      (1 vote)

Video transcript

What I want to do in this video is give an overview of how money is created in most market based economies, and even a little bit of a discussion of what really is money. And we can go into much more depth in future videos. And I think in many videos I already have gone into a much more technical depth. In most market based economies right now there is a central bank, which is essentially the actor, they do many things. They often will be a regulatory agency as well. But their main role is to have the right to print money, and to put that money into circulation. And I'll rely heavily on the model of the US. That's hard to read. The central bank in some countries is formerly part of the government. In other countries, it's pseudo-independent. In the US. It's more of the pseudo-independent flavor of a central bank, although obviously closely connected with the government. The US Federal Reserve, a lot of the leaders are appointed by the government. It's excess profits go back to the government. And so obviously it has very close ties to the government. But when the central bank decides to print money, it literally can just create it. It could literally print physical money. Or it can create electronic money, which has the same exact effect. So let's say the central bank, it goes out there and it goes out there and it prints three-- and we'll just focus on the physical right now. It's a little bit easier to conceptualize. And it just goes out there and it prints three physical dollar bills. Now it has to figure out, how does it get it into circulation? How does it get it into the economy? And it does not just put it into a helicopter and drop it from that helicopter. Sometimes, in certain circumstances, it can lend to this directly to banks, certain types of banks, member banks. But the typical way that this enters circulation is that the central bank will use this newly created money, this newly created reserves I should say, to go out into the open market and buy securities. And they typically buy very safe securities, typically government debt. So they will go out there and they will put this into circulation. And in exchange they are buying securities from the open market. So then these securities from the open market will go to the central bank. So these are securities, or maybe we could call them bonds. And once they do that, then whoever had these before, whoever was the owner of the securities before, they just sold them. Now they have these dollar bills. And they could either directly spend those dollar bills or they could deposit those dollar bills in a bank. If they spend the dollar bills, then whoever they gave those dollar bills to at some point would want to deposit it in a bank. Some way, by buying these securities, someone now has these dollar bills. And they will deposit them in a private bank. So let's draw that. So right over here is a private bank. And now it has the dollar bills. It has these reserves now. It has the reserves. Now, that's not the end of the story. This money can now be lent. And this is key, because this is what's typical in most market economies where they have fractional reserve lending. So fractional reserve lending, which is a bit strange, because you are telling the person who just deposited this money right here, that you can go at any time and you can take this money out. We've got this money for you. You can trust us. You don't have to be paranoid about what's going on with this money. But the reality is that this bank is allowed to keep only a fraction of these reserves, and lend to the rest of it out. In order for this system to not be super fragile, the Central Bank then also insures these banks. But we'll talk about that into more depth. But here. I just want to show you how the money is created in this fractional reserve lending system. So this bank right over here says, well I have to keep a little bit of these reserves in case that guy comes. The probability of all my customers coming on the same day and asking for all of their money is low. I just have to keep a little bit for whoever does come. And then the rest of it I can lend out, even though I promised everyone that all of their money is available. And so they lend it out to whoever needs to borrow that money, who looks like a decent risk. And those people might not spend it immediately. And so they would deposit it into a bank. Or they might spend that money immediately. They by a factor, or they buy a car. They do something with it. And whoever they bought that new thing from, those people now have the money and they will deposit it into a bank. And so this newly lent money will then end up in perhaps another bank. It could even be the same bank. So that will also end up in a bank, right over here. And now this bank, it can also only keep a fraction of the reserves and lend out the rest. And for simplicity, in most banking systems, they only have to keep on the order of about 10% of the reserves in house, and the rest they could lend out. But over here. I'm keeping much larger reserves just for the sake of making it easy to draw this diagram. So this bank right over here, maybe it decides to keep this dollar bill, and it could lend this one right over here out. And once again, when it lands that dollar bill, it will end up somehow-- the person they lend it to might keep it in a bank temporarily. Or they might immediately buy something. And when they buy something, it will eventually end up in a bank because the person they bought something from will deposit that money. And so it could end up in another bank. And now this is interesting, and in future videos we'll go into more of the math of exactly how much money is being created. And it's an interesting mathematical problem. Actually, it's a sum of an infinite series, and all that. And you can look that up if you're interested in those ideas. But the basic idea here is even though the central bank printed three units of base money, $3.00 right over here, there's a lot more money in the system. You have this guy, who made this deposit, thinks he has $3.00. This person thinks they have $2.00. This person thinks they have one. So just in this example over here, we have one, two, three, four, five $6.00. So just right over here we have $6.00 in this system. And you might say, well, is this really money? This is deposited. This guy thinks he has it, but he's not using it. If he had to use it he would have to withdraw it, and then the bank wouldn't be able to do this. And this is where checking accounts are really important. I'm assuming that these were on demand checking accounts. So this guy, the reason why he's not going to withdraw this money, is he can still use it as money by writing checks. So if this guy, let's say this is all the money that he has, and he decides if he really needs to buy an apple. And that Apple costs $1.00. So this is my drawing of an apple right over here. He does not have to withdraw this $1.00 out of the bank. He can write a check. So right now he has claims to all three of these dollars. He can write a check to the apple vendor, so $1.00. He writes a check, gives it to the apple vendor, and now he'll get the apple, so this check is acting as money. And now the apple vendor will have the rights to one of these dollars right over here. And now the apple vendor could write a check. So this dollar never has to leave the banking system. But because of checks it is essentially enabling-- this check writing-- is enabling these transactions to occur. So it's still enabling, either you could view it as it's still acting in some forms of money because the rights to it can change, even though it's sitting out in here and it's been lent. Or you could say that it's enabling the writing of checks that are acting as some form of money. And the whole reason I want to do this, I'm going through this exercise, is to show you that the amount of money in circulation isn't really in the Central Banks, or not directly in the Central Bank's control. They can definitely decide, hey I'm going to print money, buy securities, put it into circulation. Or if they want to take money out of circulation, they can decide to sell these securities. And then when they sell the securities, maybe this guy will buy them, those dollars will go back to the Central Bank. And maybe they could put it out of commission. But you have this whole effect right over here. If you have more lending occurring, if the banks are feeling very confident, then more of this will happen. You will get more of this-- the multiplier effect of this lending. And if less lending is happening, then you could potentially see all of this contract.