@techreport{JostMink2024, type = {Working Paper}, author = {Jost, Thomas and Mink, Reimund}, title = {Central bank losses and commercial bank profits - unexpected and unfair?}, series = {IMFS Working Paper Series No. 199}, journal = {IMFS Working Paper Series No. 199}, pages = {35}, year = {2024}, abstract = {The Eurosystem and the Deutsche Bundesbank will incur substantial losses in 2023 that are likely to persist for several years. Due to the massive purchases of securities in the last 10 years, especially of government bonds, the banks' excess reserves have risen sharply. The resulting high interest payments to the banks since the turnaround in monetary poli-cy, with little income for the large-scale securities holdings, led to massive criticism. The banks were said to be making "unfair" profits as a result, while the fiscal authorities had to forego the previously customary transfers of central bank profits. Populist demands to limit bank profits by, for example, drastically increasing the minimum reserve ratios in the Eurosystem to reduce excess reserves are creating new severe problems and are neither justified nor helpful. Ultimately, the EU member states have benefited for a very long time from historically low interest rates because of the Eurosystem's extraordinary loose monetary policy and must now bear the flip side consequences of the massive expansion of central bank balance sheets during the necessary period of monetary policy normalisa-tion.}, subject = {Notenbank}, language = {en} } @misc{JostMink2024, author = {Jost, Thomas and Mink, Reimund}, title = {How to deal with the negative effects of inflated central bank balance sheets?}, organization = {SUERF}, pages = {1 -- 4}, year = {2024}, abstract = {Due to the massive purchases of securities in the last 15 years central banks incur substantial losses likely to persist for several years. On the other hand, the banking sector gains large profits from interest payments on their excess reserves holdings. Central banks and fiscal authorities must now bear the flip side consequences of their bond purchase programs. Populist demands to limit bank profits by drastically increasing minimum reserve ratios in the Eurosystem are creating new severe problems. Instead, a consistent and faster normalisation of central bank balance sheets would be desirable. Central banks should also no longer be central players in government bond markets to restore the lost boundaries between fiscal and monetary policy.}, subject = {Europ{\"a}ische Zentralbank}, language = {en} }