Those new Japanese safety deposit boxes must all be empty

Remember all the hoopla about Japanese buying safety deposit boxes to hold cash in response to the Bank of Japan's decision to set negative rates? Here is the Wall Street Journal:

Look no further than Japan’s hardware stores for a worrying new sign that consumers are hoarding cash--the opposite of what the Bank of Japan had hoped when it recently introduced negative interest rates. Signs are emerging of higher demand for safes—a place where the interest rate on cash is always zero, no matter what the central bank does.

Well, three month's worth of data shows no evidence of unusual cash demand. As the chart below illustrates, the rate at which the Bank of Japan is printing the ¥10,000 note shows no discontinuity from its pre-negative rate rise. In fact, demand for the ¥10,000 is far below what it was in the 1990s, when interest rates were positive.

I should remind readers that the Bank of Japan, like any central bank, doesn't determine the quantity of banknotes in circulation; rather, the public draws those notes into circulation by converting deposits into notes. So this data is a pure indicator of Japanese cash demand.

The lack of interest in switching into yen notes should come as no surprise given the experience of other nations that have set negative interest rates. Data from Sweden, Denmark, and Switzerland has consistently shown that it takes more than just a slight dip into negative territory before the dreaded "lower bound," the point at which the public converts all their deposits into banknotes, is encountered.

For instance, despite the setting of a -0.5% repo rate by Sweden's Riksbank, Swedish cash in circulation continues to decline. I won't bother to provide a chart, you can go see the data here.

As for the Danes, the growth rate in Danish cash demand continues to hover near its long term average of 3.7%/year. This despite the fact that the Danmarks Nationalbank, the nation's central bank, is setting a deposit rate of -0.65%. I've charted it out below:

Definitely no lower bound in Denmark, at least not yet.

Finally, we have Switzerland where the Swiss National Bank has maintained a -0.75% rate since December 2014. Back in February, the WSJ and Zero Hedge were making a fuss out of the sudden jump in the demand for the 1000 franc note, in effect blaming the build up on the lower bound. I wrote a rebuttal at the time, Are Swiss fleeing deposits and hoarding cash, pointing out that the demand for Swiss francs is often driven by safe haven concerns. The observed increase in 1000s might therefore have very little to do with the SNB hitting the effective lower bound and everything to do with worries about falling equity prices, China, deteriorating credit quality, and more.

With many of these concerns subsiding in 2016, one might expect the safe haven demand for 1000 franc notes to be falling again. And that's exactly what we see in the chart below; the Swiss are accumulating notes at a decelerating pace, even though the SNB has not relaxed its negative deposit rate one iota.

What these charts all show is that the effective lower bound to central bank deposit rates has not yet been engaged, even after many months in negative territory. You can be sure that the global community of central bankers is watching this data too; it is telling them that, should the need arise, their respective interest rates can be pushed lower than the current low-water mark that has been set by the SNB and Danmarks Nationalbank at -0.75%, say to -0.85% or even -1.0%.

There are a few factors that might be dampening the demand for paper notes. Remember that the Swiss and the Japanese have installed cash escape inhibitors; mechanisms that reduce the incentive for banks to convert central bank deposits into cash. I've written about them here.

Secondly, the SNB and the BoJ, along with the Danes, have set up an array of interest rate tiers. While the marginal deposit earns a negative rate, the majority of the tiers are only lightly penalized or not penalized at all. This tiering represents a central bank subsidy to commercial banks; in turn, banks have passed this subsidy on to their retail depositor base in the form of higher-than-otherwise interest rates, the upshot being that very few banks have set negative deposit rates on retail customers. This has helped stifle any potential run on deposits.

Tiering and cash escape inhibitors have helped dissuade cash withdrawals by two members of the public, retail depositors and banks, but not the third; large non-bank institutions. That these latter institutions haven't bolted into cash shows that the natural costs of storing wads of paper are quite high, and that the effective lower bound quite deep.

Hike rates when you hear the creak of inflation at the door, not when you see the whites of its eyes

A common argument against the Fed raising interest rates next week is the asymmetry in risks that it faces. If it keeps rates low too long and sets off inflation, no problem: it can quickly hike rates a few times to bring prices back in line. However, if it boosts rates too early and an unintended slowdown sets in, the Fed won't have room to cut a few times in order to fix its mistake. That's because the Fed is at the zero lower bound, the edge of the world in monetary policy terms. To avoid this conundrum, the Fed should hold off as long as possible before raising, at least until it "sees the whites of inflation's eyes."

As Paul Krugman points out, the asymmetry argument is only a recent one. Historically U.S. interest rates have hovered far above zero. If the Fed made a mistake, it didn't have to worry about falling off the edge of the world in order to fix the situation, it could simply ratchet rates down a few times. Rather than waiting till the last minute to see the whites of inflation's eyes before hiking, the FOMC only had to hear the creak of inflation at the door.  

I don't buy the current asymmetry argument. I might have bought it back in 2013, but the data has changed.

Over the last year, Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, and the ECB have all demonstrated to the world that central banks can safely lower rates into negative territory without setting off the sorts of ill effects that economists have always feared, the main one being a race into 0% yielding cash. The theory here is that if a central bank reduces rates to, say, -0.1%, then paper cash—which pays a superior 0% return—starts to look pretty attractive. An arbitrage process begins whereby central bank deposits are converted into cash until all deposits have disappeared. Thus rates can't be reduced below 0%.

Evidence over the last 12 months shows otherwise. Denmark's Nationalbank has kept its deposit rate at -0.75% since early February. Danes, however, are not scrambling for banknotes, as the chart below shows. After seven months of negative rates, cash and coin outstanding are growing at a rate that lies pretty much at its two decade average.

The Swiss National Bank has maintained a -0.75% overnight rate since January, yet there's been no spike in Swiss paper franc demand, as the next chart shows. In fact, cash outstanding seems to be growing at one of its slowest rates in years.

We'd expect the demand for Swiss cash to be especially sensitive when interest rates fall below zero because the SNB issues the world's largest value banknote; the hefty 1000 sFr. The more valuable the banknote the lower the cost of storing wealth in cash form. These carrying costs are particularly important in determining the profitability of flight into cash at negative interest rates. A central bank can push rates a sliver below 0% without setting off a flight out of deposits into banknotes as long as there are inconveniences in storing cash. The greater these inconveniences, the larger that sliver.

The fact that the SNB has been able to keep rates at -0.75% for seven months now without setting off a stampede into 1000 notes indicates that the burdens of holding Swiss currency are higher than everyone had previously thought. It would seem that investors would rather lose 0.75% each year than bear the costs of storing 1000s. At some negative interest rate, maybe -1.5%, the flight into Swiss notes will start. But it hasn't yet. As for the U.S., its highest value banknote is the lowly $100, so it's fair to assume that the costs of storing U.S. paper money are significantly higher than Swiss money. Which means that if the Swiss can safely cut to -0.75% without setting off cash arbitrage, the Fed should be able to descend to at least -1.0% before panic ensues.

The second greatest fear surrounding sub zero U.S. rates has always concerned money market mutual funds. The worry here is that should the Fed reduce rates too deep, a financial intermediary known as a money market mutual fund (MMMF) will 'break the buck,' causing panic and terror among ordinary investors.

MMMFs are like regular mutual funds except their share price stays fixed at US$1.00. Investors can cash out at that price whenever they want, enjoying low but steady dividend payments until then. MMMFs maintain par conversion by investing in safe, highly liquid short term debt. However, if the Fed were to drive short term rates into negative territory, MMMFs would be forced to invest in assets that promise a negative return. $1000 invested in t-bills, for instance, would be worth only $999 upon maturity. That means that an MMMF simply wouldn't have a sufficient quantity of assets to allow everyone to redeem their shares at US$1.00. The fund will "break the buck," or mark its share value down to something like 99 cents to allow for full redemption. Since MMMFs are supposed to be cash-like—in fact, many of them offer cheque-writing capability—such a development would be disastrous, or so goes the story.

I don't consider breaking the buck to be a terrible outcome, but even if it is, European money market mutual funds—faced with negative interest rates—have already found an ingenious way to avoid it; a Reverse Distribution Mechanism. Rather than reducing redemption below par, MMMFs simply dock the number of shares that each shareholder has in his or her account. For example, as rates slide below zero, instead of 100 units being worth only $0.99 each, a shareholder forfeits one unit and ends up with 99 units worth $1.00 each. The deeper rates fall, the less units each investor owns. The genius of this patch is that the purchasing power of each share stays constant, but the negative interest rate is efficiently passed on to the owner of the MMMF.

So fears of a dash into cash at 0% and a collapse of MMMFs are just bogeymen. If the Fed hikes to 0.5% this month—and this proves to be a mistake—it still has plenty of room to make things right. Given how well Europe has coped over the last twelve months, the Fed can easily cut rates another 1.5% to -1.0%; that's six quarter-point reductions or thirty ten-point cuts. Only when rates falls beyond Swiss or Danish levels, say to -1.0%, will the Fed find itself in truly asymmetrical territory. (If necessary, here are some simple ways to allow for even more negative rates).

To be clear, that doesn't mean I think the Fed should hike rates next week. The fact that the FOMC continues to undershoot its 2% core inflation target would seem to indicate that holding off might be the right thing to do. Rather, I don't think that Fed policy makers need to wait to see the white's of inflation's eyes before they hike, they need only wait to hear the creak of inflation at the door.

Plumbing the depths of the effective lower bound

Unfathomable Depths by Ibai Acevedo

Denmark's Nationalbank and the Swiss National Bank are the world's most interesting central banks right now. As the two of them push their deposit rates to record low levels of -0.75%, they're testing the market's limit for bearing negative nominal interest rates. The ECB takes second prize as it has been maintaining a -0.2% deposit rate since September 2014.

At some point, investors will flee deposits into 0%-yielding cash. This marks the effective lower bound to rates. Has mass paper storage begun? The last time I ran through the data was in my monetary canaries post, which was inconclusive. Let's take a quick glance at the updated data.

To gauge where we are relative to the effective lower bound, I'm most interested in the demand for large denomination notes, which bear the lowest costs of storage. Once a central bank reduces its deposit rate so deep into negative territory that the carrying cost of deposits exceeds the cost of storing a nation's largest value banknote, then it has hit the effective lower bound. Small denominations notes, which have higher storage costs, are not a pivotal part of the picture given the ability of note holders to freely convert low value notes into higher ones.

European Central Bank

The ECB issues the €500 note, which has the second highest purchasing power out of the world's currency notes. I've charted the quantity of €500 euro notes in circulation below, as well as the percent change in the value of all euro denominations:

After declining through 2012 and 2013, we saw a sharp rise in demand for €500 notes, particularly in December 2014 and the first few months of 2015. The red line illustrates the general demand for all denominations of euro cash. Over the last four months the seasonally-adjusted growth rate of banknotes outstanding has risen to its highest level in the last five years.

It's hard to determine how much of this increase can be attributed to the ECB's negative rate policy, initiated when Mario Draghi brought the deposit facility rate to -0.1% in June and -0.2% in September, and how much is due to the Greek fiasco. Growing fears that Greece will either leave the euro or impose capital controls have led to a steady jog out Greek banks. There are two escape routes: Greek's can convert their deposits can into German deposits or into cash.

In an interesting article, Bloomberg's Lorcan Roche Kelly backs out the Greek-specific demand for European cash. Read it for the full details, but the shorter rendition is that a line item on the Bank of Greece's balance sheet allows us to see how many banknotes Greeks are demanding in excess of the Bank of Greece's regular allocation. Kelly finds a large spike beginning in December and extending into 2015, which we can attribute to the bank jog. I've recreated the chart below:

Source: Bloomberg, data to end of March

The approximately €12 billion jump in Greek cash demand corresponds nicely with the recent €7.2 billion spike in €500 notes in circulation across the entire eurozone. The upshot is that a large chunk of the rise in €500 notes over the last few months is probably due to a run on Greek banks, not an escape from negative-yielding ECB deposits. Remove the run and the rise in demand for €500 notes would have been unremarkable, indicating that the eurozone is still far from hitting the effective lower bound.

Swiss National Bank

Because Swiss banknotes are not a direct escape route from the ongoing Greek bank run, SNB cash data should provide a clearer signal of the whereabouts of the effective lower bound than ECB data. The SNB issues the world's most valuable banknote in terms of purchasing power; the 1000 franc note. Below I've plotted the yearly percent change in demand for both the 1000 note and Swiss cash-in-general to the end of February.

There's been slight pickup in the demand for Swiss cash, but nothing dramatic. Its worth pointing out that Swiss paper currency has historically played a safe haven role. Demand tends to spike during episodes of uncertainty, including the 2008 credit crisis and the 2011-12 period, when it seemed like the euro could be torn apart. This means that it is difficult to be sure how much of the recent pickup in demand for Swiss cash stems from the SNB's -0.75% deposit rate and how much is due to fear of a Greek government default, which would create havoc in world markets.  

Danmarks Nationalbank

Our final canary is the Danmarks Nationalbank. Unlike the demand for Swiss paper francs, the demand for Danish paper krone does not usually spike during times of crisis. For instance, during the 2008 credit crisis demand remained muted. This leads me to believe that demand for paper krone provides the clearest indicator yet of the presence (or not) of the effective lower bound. I've charted the year-over-year change in Danish currency in circulation.

In the 55 days that have passed since the Danmarks National bank reduced its rates to -0.75% (February 5), there has been a sustained rise in the demand for cash, as the red data indicate. But I don't think we can describe it as anything out of the ordinary, at least not yet.

Interestingly, in late March the Nationalbank granted Danish banks some wiggle room by providing them with greater access to the Bank's 0% current-account facility. This small adjustment would have reduced Danish banks' incentives to emigrate from -0.75% deposits into cash. Was the central bank's decision to provide this wiggle room a response to private data showing that it had hit the effective lower bound? Who knows.

It may be worth noting even if a central bank finds itself at the effective lower bound, it can forestall the demand for large denomination notes by using moral suasion. Willem Buiter mentions this possibility in his recent note High Time To Get Low, but maintains we have no evidence of this sort of pressure. I'm tempted to agree with him. If either the Danish or Swiss central bankers have put informal embargoes on cash, we would have known about it by now.

The use of moral suasion to prevent large denomination banknote storage would effectively freeze the quantity of high value notes in circulation. In such a scenario, we'd expect the 1000 Sfr note to rise to a slight premium to face value, say 1050 Sfr in bank deposits for each 1000 Sfr in banknotes. Traders would be willing to pay this premium as long as the storage costs on high value notes are lower than the -0.75% penalty set by the SNB on deposits, thus allowing them to earn an excess return on their note holdings. As long as moral suasion remains successful in choking off Swiss banks' demand for cash, each subsequent cut by the SNB into ever deeper negative territory would drive the premium on notes higher. (Assiduous readers will recognize this as the second of three ways for a lazy central banker to escape a liquidity trap.)

In sum, we probably haven't hit the effective lower bound yet. Stay tuned.

Hawk, Doves, and Canaries

Central bankers are usually classified as either hawks or doves. This post is devoted to a third and rare breed; today's monetary policy canaries. Having taken their respective deposit rates to -0.75%, deeper into negative territory than any other bank in history (save the Swedes), the Swiss National Bank and Denmark's Nationalbank are the canaries of the central banking world, plumbing depths that everyone assumes to be dangerous. Other central bankers, in particular the ECB's Mario Draghi, will no doubt be watching the Swiss and Danes quite closely. The information these two nations generate as they go deep into the bowels of negative rate territory will give a good indication of the level to which the others can safely reduce their own rates before hitting their respective effective lower bounds.

That there is an effective lower bound to rates stems from the fact that at some negative nominal interest rate, everyone will choose to convert deposits into cash, preferring to pay storage and handling costs on the underlying paper instrument than enduring a negative interest penalty on the electronic equivalent. Once this process starts, a central bank will be unwilling to push rates much lower given the possibility that the economy's entire deposit base gets converted into paper.

Last week Danish central banker Lars Rohde told the WSJ that while there is some lower bound for negative interest rates, "we haven't found it yet." What Rohde was basically saying is that the marginal storage costs of Danish cash are higher than -0.75%, Denmark's current monetary policy rate. If costs were lower, than Denmark's largest and most efficient cash hoarders, Danish banks, would have already rushed to convert their deposits held at the Nationalbank into banknotes—and Rohde would have found his as-yet inactive lower bound. Given his confident tone, Rohde must not be seeing much demand for banknotes. He would know. As his nation's central banker, he's privy to real time information on the quantity of cash that the central bank is being called upon to print up and provide to commercial banks.

We can get a rough feel for the data that Rohde is seeing. The chart below shows the year-over-year percent increase in end-of-month Danish cash and coin outstanding. The data is current to the end of February, eighteen days ago. Given that Denmark's deposit rate was initially reduced to -0.5% on January 29 and then to -0.75% on February 5, the data affords us an insight into the first thirty or so days of Danish cash demand at ultra low interest rates.

The chart shows that the yearly rate of growth in cash outstanding has accelerated slightly but is well within its normal range. What does this tell us about paper storage costs? Let's crunch some numbers. Danish banks currently have around 350 billion krone in funds on deposit at the Danish Nationalbanken in the form of certificates of deposit. This amounts to about US$50 billion. The central bank's -0.75% interest rate imposes yearly charges of around 2.5 billion krone, or US$375 million, on those deposits. In choosing to hold funds at the central bank, Danish banks are revealing that the cost of handling and storing paper cash must be somewhere above $375 million a year, else they'd have already started to convert into the cheaper alternative.

Keep in mind that this illustrates just thirty days with deep negative rates. With cash use in Denmark having been stagnant for a number of years (see chart here), vault space may have been re-purposed for other uses—maybe employees have been parking their commuter bikes in unused vaults or storing old bank documents in them. It could take time for vaults to be cleaned up. If so, a dash into cash could simply be delayed by a few weeks.

When Denmark hits its effective lower bound, what will the above chart look like? The 350 billion krone in deposits that banks currently keep at the central bank would quickly be converted into cash. Since Denmark currently has just 65 billion krone in notes and coin in circulation, we'd see a quintupling in cash outstanding. For comparison's sake, this would dwarf previous episodes of strong krone cash demand, like Y2K.

And what of our other canary, the SNB? The Swiss, so timely on matters of transport, don't think that up-to-date central banking data is important. The SNB's most recent data on cash outstanding is too stale to give a good idea how the Swiss have reacted so far to -0.75% rates. All we've got is anecdotes. This article reports that a Swiss pension fund attempted to withdraw a portion of its investments from its bank and hold it in a vault, thus saving 25,000 francs per 10 million francs after storage & handling costs, the implication being that these costs run around 0.5% a year. We'll have to wait for more data to come out of Switzerland before we can gauge whether it is at its effective lower bound.

What we do know is that Switzerland's bound will be much tighter than Denmark's. That's because while Denmark's largest denomination note is the 1000 krone note (worth about US$141), Switzerland's largest note is the 1000 franc note (worth about US$993.) That makes a US$1 million bundle of Danish notes seven times more bulky than that same bundle of Swiss notes, resulting in higher storage costs. This has important implications, since Mario Draghi's ECB, which issues a 500 euro note (worth US$530), likely has an effective lower bound that lies somewhere in between these two.

All of these data points may seem quite being arcane, but they have a very real policy significance. They're the difference between a central bank running out of interest rate ammunition, or buying itself an extra ten 10 basis point rate cuts.

Sweden and peak cash

The Swedes really don't like cash. First, consider that Sweden is the only country in the world that I'm aware of where reliance on paper money is in decline. Second, no country's central bank has produced a nominal deposit rate as negative as Sweden's, for as long. Yet even at -0.85% per year, Swedish banks who own those deposits haven't fled into 0% cash, providing some indication of the degree to which they hold banknotes in disdain.

ABBA won't accept paper

As the chart below shows, cash outstanding continues to grow in almost every country except Sweden. Japan and Denmark are the only countries that come close to pacing the Swedes, although both nations continue to show incremental growth in demand for banknotes. Even Kenya, where m-pesa has taken hold, shows strong cash demand.

Sweden reached "peak-cash" somewhere between 2007 and 2008. The reason for this change of heart is public preferences, not government diktat. The monetary authorities can only indirectly influence the demand for cash, say by introducing/removing various banknote denominations, or altering the quality of its note issue (say by making notes harder to counterfeit). By virtue of deposits being convertible into cash whenever the depositor desires (and vice versa), the allocation between cash and deposits is primarily up to the public, not the monetary authorities.

One theory is that Sweden become more law-abiding in 2008, thus reducing their demand for paper kronor. Cash is typically demanded by criminals and tax evaders to avoid creating a paper trail. That Sweden's underground element suddenly decided to go legit doesn't seem very plausible to me. Demographics is a more likely contributor to peak cash. As a nation's population growth slows, the demand for cash peters off with it. This can't be the entire explanation, however, since other countries that also suffer from poor population growth profiles (like Canada) show rising cash demand. This leaves technology as the most likely culprit. As electronic payment options improve, it makes little sense to endure the hassle of withdrawing and holding a small horde of dirty paper in one's wallet.

According to a MasterCard study, 89% of transactions in Sweden are cashless, compared to 80% in the U.S. Situation Stockholm, the street paper sold by homeless vendors in Sweden's capital, can be purchased with a card rather than cash, and while London's buses went cash-free earlier this year, bus fares disappeared several years ago in Stockholm. Unlike the U.S. and other laggards, Sweden has a near real-time person-to-person payments system called Bankgirot which has been active since 2011. Bank customers can download an app called Swish, which allows them to make immediate mobile payments over the Bankgirot network. In southern Sweden, Vicar Johan Tyrberg has installed a card reader to make it easier for worshipers to make offerings. And finally, despite having a hit song entitled Money, Money, Money, ABBA refuses refuses to accept cash at the ABBA Museum. Apparently ABBA member Bjorn Ulvaeus is leading a crusade against banknotes after his son's apartment was burgled twice.

No zero lower bound, at least not yet

As a second illustration of Swedish cash abhorrence, consider that no other central bank has maintained a negative deposit rate as low as Sweden's central bank, the Riksbank, for as long. The Riksbank reduced its deposit rate to -0.85% this month after having maintained it at -0.75% since October 2014. A few nations come close. The Swiss, for instance, reduced rates to -0.75% in January, as have the Danes—but both are behind the pace set by the Swedes.

The key point here is that with Riksbank deposits being penalized 0.85% per year, one would assume that that they'd be quickly converted into Swedish banknotes. Cash, after all, pays 0% a year, superior to -0.85%. But that hasn't happened. As the chart below shows, cash left on deposit at the Riksbank stands at around 150 million kr, roughly the same level it has been at for the last twelve months (and far above 2008-2012 levels).

Who keeps funds on deposit at the Riksbank? As the business day progresses and Swedes make payments among each other, banks who maintain settlement accounts at the Riksbank will find themselves in a surplus or deficit position. While those in surplus can elect to park their excess at the Riksbank's overnight deposit facility, they'll usually try to lend these positions to deficit banks in the interbank lending market or participate in Riksbank fine-tuning operations at the end of the day, both of which provide superior returns to the deposit rate. For whatever reason, Swedish banks typically leave a small portion of their surplus in the deposit facility, bearing the awful return on deposits for the sake of enjoying whatever conveniences the deposit facility offers.

That this 150 million kr in -0.85% yielding deposits hasn't been converted into cash is an indication of just how low Swedish opinion on cash has sunk. Consider the myriad number of costs a bank that wants to cash out its balance will have to incur. A Brinks truck must be hired in order to transport the cash to the bank's vaults. The cash must be counted, requiring a diversion of tellers' resources from other important activities. With the majority of Swedish bank branches having gone cashless, they may need to reinvest in handling infrastructure before they can take delivery of a truck full of banknotes. Next, that cash needs to be vaulted, which means displacing other valuables from being safeguarded (like a client's jewels), forcing the bank to forfeit a vaulting fee. Finally, the cash needs to be insured from theft. No wonder Swedish banks continue to use the Riksbank's deposit facility, even at a -0.85% rate; like the public, banks don't consider cash to be a convenient option.

Could Swedes one day re-embrace cash?

Swedes are proud of their move towards digital payments, but this trend could very rapidly come to an end. In an effort to hit its inflation target, the Riksbank may have to push interest rates even deeper into negative territory. At much lower levels, even the most cash-hating Swedes will have to re-consider their aversion to paper. The consequences could be significant. While only a small quantity of deposits are kept in the Riksbank's deposit facility, much larger amounts—around 30 billion krone—are invested at the Riksbank via overnight fine-tuning repos, which currently pay -0.2%. If the Riksbank reduced the fine-tuning rate much lower (say to around -1.5%), these repos would be rapidly converted into cash by banks. The public holds many hundreds of billions more worth of deposits at Swedish commercial banks. Should Riksbank rate reductions force banks to respond by ratcheting down their own deposit rates to -1 or -2%, how long before Swedes empty out their bank accounts, turning Sweden into a cash-only economy?

To avoid reverting to a cash-only economy at extreme negative rates, the Riksbank would do well to hitch itself to the cashless trend. One way to go about this without calling in all banknotes would be to reign in the number of paper products the central bank currently offers consumers, in particular high denominations of notes. Just stop allowing conversions into the 1000 krona note, and maybe the 500 krona note too, or consider canceling these large denominations outright. Not only would this reduce the central bank's printing costs, but it would provide more room for further rate cuts into negative territory—without the threat of a mad dash into Swedish cash.

As for the rest of us...

As in Sweden, I'm pretty sure that cash demand in places like Canada and the US will eventually peak as continued advances in payments technology and a more rapid adoption of those technologies lead consumers to demand less of the stuff. Central banks might consider adapting to this trend ahead of time by reducing the number of paper products they offer to the public. Do the Swiss really need a 1000 SFr note? Do Europeans need a €500 note, and Canadians $100 notes? Alternatively, why not do what Bill Woolsey advocates? Let's gradually privatize the issuance of paper currency. If anyone can make cash relevant again, it's innovators in the private sector. And if they can't, then maybe the banknote deserves to die a slow death.

Secondly, Sweden shows that the so-called zero-lower bound isn't actually at zero, but some distance below that. Cash is awfully burdensome, as evidenced by Swedish banks who are willing to hold deposits at -0.85% despite the option to earn 0%. Central bankers at the Federal Reserve, ECB, and elsewhere would do well to heed this Swedish data point. If they need to loosen monetary policy in order to hit their targets, they can go well below -0.5% before having to fear mass conversion into cash. The world's central bankers have much more interest rate ammunition than they let on.

The ZLB and the impending race into Swiss CHF1000 bank notes

Two things worth noting:

1. As many of you know by now, the Swiss National Bank (SNB), Switzerland's central bank, just reduced the rate that banks earn on deposits held at the SNB by half a percentage point to -0.75% (from -0.25%). The SNB had only recently instituted a negative deposit rate, having reduced it to -0.25% from 0% this December. The SNB will also be targeting a 3-month LIBOR rate of -1.25% to -0.25%, down from the previous range of -0.75% to +0.25%


2. The SNB issues the world's largest paper bearer note denomination, the hefty CHF 1000 note (pictured above). It's worth around US$1143.

The first is significant because as yet, no central bank has ever brought rates this deep into negative territory. The ECB's current deposit rate is set at -0.2% while Denmark's central bank, the Danmarks Nationalbank (DNB), applied a negative deposit rate of -0.2% on deposits that banks placed with the DNB in 2012. Neither of these top the SNB's ultra-low -0.75% rate.

The second point is significant because neither the ECB nor the DNB issue a note that approaches the real value of the CHF 1000.

Why is the conjunction of these two observations important? In short, we get to observe in real time how tightly the so-called zero-lower bound (ZLB) binds. When a central bank reduces the rate it pays on central bank deposits below 0%, arbitrage dictates that all other short term interest rates will follow along, including rates on government t-bills and insured bank deposits. However, one asset interferes with this adjustment: cash. Cash carries an implicit yield of 0%. If deposits or t-bills are being penalized at a rate of 0.25% per year, there are significant incentives for everyone to convert these assets into zero-yielding paper equivalents in order to avoid the 0.25% penalty. Not only will commercial banks all convert their deposits at the central bank to cash, but the public will clear out their bank accounts in order to hold paper. The upshot is that interest rates can't fall below 0% lest the  entire country turn into a 100% cash economy.

In practice, the 0% bound isn't a tight one since paper currency incurs storage and transportation costs whereas electronic deposits don't. What this means is that a depositor will grudgingly accept a slightly negative deposit rate in order to avoid having to bear the inconveniences of ungainly cash. So the zero lower bound actually lies a bit lower than 0%, let's say -0.4%. However, reduce rates far enough below that and the dash to cash beings.

This is where the CHF 1,000 note comes into the picture. The larger the denomination of paper currency issued by a central bank, the lower the storage and transportation costs. Take CHF 1,000,000 worth of CHF 20 notes. That's 50,000 paper notes. The costs incurred in counting, double counting, checking for counterfeits, packaging, loading into an armoured car, unloading into a vault, paying storage costs on that vault, and finally insuring the hoard will be quite high. Now imagine CHF 1,000,000 worth of CHF 1000 notes. That amount to just 1,000 slim paper notes, a fiftieth of the amount. Handling and storage costs come out to much less. The point being that thanks to the CHF 1,000 note, the zero lower bound binds a bit more tightly in Switzerland than anywhere else in the world.

What I'd expect over the next few months is a mad dash out of deposits into these colourful bits of paper. Luckily, the SNB provides data on its note denominations, which I've charted below going back to 1990.

The value of CHF 1000 denomination notes in circulation. Source: SNB

You can see that in general, the value of CHF 1,000 notes outstanding has grown quite quickly since 1990 and now comprises around 61% of the entire value of the Swiss note circulation. While that tally retreated a bit in 2014, it should start to grow at an above-trend rate in 2015 now that negative rates are in effect. The actual process will go something like this; the Swiss public will ask to convert their bank deposits into CHF 1000 notes, the banks being obliged to provide these notes by going to the SNB and converting their SNB deposits into cash.

If this process doesn't occur, the implication is that the costs of holding 1000 notes are even higher than 0.75% a year, thus giving the SNB even more breathing room to reduce rates.

I'd expect ongoing conversion into 1000 notes to impose a significant burden on the SNB, threatening both the banking system's deposit base and the effectiveness of monetary policy. There are a number of fixes that the Swiss might consider to offset this burden. First, the SNB can bump interest rates back up in order to stem the mania for 1000 notes, hardly an alternative if it is trying to get inflation back up to  its target. Alternatively, the Bank may decide to call in and demonetize the CHF 1000 notes, forcing everyone to accept five CHF 200 notes in its place (an idea discussed here). Since the 200 incurs more carrying costs than the 1000, the conversion into cash will be forestalled and the lower bound will have effectively been loosened downwards. Lastly, the Swiss might consider adopting a crawling peg between cash and deposits, as advocated by Miles Kimball.

The next and last option is the most interesting. When the public asks the banks for CHF 1000s, and the banks ask the SNB for 1000s, the SNB can just say no. In doing so, the SNB will have frozen the quantity of 1000s in circulation.

What will happen next will amount to an instance of Gresham's law. Since a CHF 1000 note is better than five CHF 200 notes due to its lower carrying costs, and 200s can no longer be converted on demand into 1000s thanks to the SNB's freeze, the 1000 should trade in the market at a premium to its face value, say CHF 1012 or 1013. However, legal tender laws typically stipulate that a note cannot discharge debts at more than its face value, thereby resulting in the forced undervalution of the 1000 note in trade. As a result, the Swiss public and its banks will hoard their 1000s rather than spending them, preferring instead to make payments and settle debts with lower denominations notes. Thus we get a modern version of Gresham's law, whereby 'good' CHF 1000 notes are driven out of circulation by 'bad' lower-denomination CHF notes. Think of it as an unofficial demonetization of the 1000.

Ultimately, I think that this last solution is the easiest and lowest cost alternative for the Swiss to fix their impending problem of mass paper storage at the negative interest rates. It's a temporary fix, however. A permanent solution will require outright demonetization of large denomination notes, or something like Miles Kimball's plan.