The other day I was talking to an acquaintance at Starbucks about the banking crisis in Cyprus, and how the European Central Bank had negotiated with the banks in Cyprus to help some of their largest depositors to a rather large haircut.
That's unfortunate if you are a large depositor and all of a sudden the bank closes for two-weeks, and tells you they are taking 40% of what you've deposited, and dutifully keeping it.
That's enough to scare depositors all over Europe.
In fact it has.
So what is a large customer to do you ask? Well, what if the large customer of the bank is a multinational conglomerate that has business units everywhere, and has a significant amount of money overseas in European banks to help pay their costs for their subsidiary units there? And what happens if these companies and corporations due to risk management scenarios decide to take their money out of the EU for fear that future banks may try these same type of shenanigans in places like Italy, Portugal, Spain, Greece, and elsewhere? Well, if you are a large Corporation, your CFO might say that it simply isn't worth the risk anymore.
So what you do with your money, and where you keep it? Where would you keep the money you use for cash flow to pay the employees of those business units operating in the EU? Would you be better to switch everyone to a Monday payday, rather than a Friday payday when the most likely time that the European Central Bank may go ahead and shut down banks there, just as our FDIC does here, they always shut the failing banks down on Friday, at closing time.
There's no sense in keeping any more money than you have to in the banks in Europe if you feel that they might tax your deposits in this way.
Therefore you just put enough money in to pay the expenses that you need, wire it in the day before, and keep your money somewhere else.
That somewhere else would obviously be a safer haven like the United States.
Okay so, now we will have a flood of money back in the US banks which is good for their deposit ratios, making them look stronger.
Stronger banks are able to lend more money.
That means there will be more business loans here the United States, and a freeing up of our credit markets and capital for small businesses, at least a noticeable uptick.
But even if that were going to happen, there was an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal on February 20, 2012 titled; "Suddenly, a Flood of Business Loans - Banks Put Their Liquidity Do Work, but Added Competition Puts Pressure on Rates and Elevates Risk," by Shayndi Raice.
Well, if we suddenly have more small business loans then that means more jobs for Americans, that's a very good thing, and a great new trend, something to look forward to.
Still, before anyone takes credit for any of this, we might consider at least some of the uptick is the mistrust or distrust in the banks of Europe, and not necessarily anything that the administration has done to improve the future likelihood of success in our small business community.
Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think on it.