Barron's on Bank Deposit Plunge
Barron's writes, "Bank Deposits Plunged in the Past Year. Schwab Took the Biggest Hit." They comment, "Banks have had an unusually rough year. Just how bad is evident in a new report from S&P Global Market Intelligence. Total deposits across U.S. banks fell 4.8%, or $872 billion, to $17.27 trillion as of June 30, according to S&P Global. The drop was the first in a data set that dates back to 1994. Among the top 15 deposit holders, Charles Schwab reported the largest year-over-year decrease in deposits of 31.1% to $304.79 billion, according to S&P Global which attributed the decline mostly to outflows from brokerage accounts." The article continues, "The S&P Global report, which looked at data from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, underscores just how much the business environment changed for banks over the past year. The Federal Reserve has raised rates at a rapid pace to combat record-setting inflation. As interest rates have risen, Americans have been moving money from low-paying bank accounts to higher yielding options such as money market funds. That process has been a particular headache for Schwab (SCHW). Though the company is best known for its brokerage platform, it also operates a sizable bank and sweeps customers' uninvested cash into low-paying bank accounts. As the data show, customers have been withdrawing deposits to invest in money market funds, often on Schwab's platform. The process, known as cash sorting, has been putting pressure on Schwab's earnings. When the company's outflows exceed cash on hand, it relies on costly solutions such as loans from the Federal Home Loan Banks system." Finally, Barron's says, "The majority of large U.S. banks posted declines in their deposit balances year-over-year, with almost 30% of the industrywide decline attributable to JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup, according to S&P Global."
