An unwillingness to let the TARGET2 balance get much bigger than current levels may be playing some role in the ECB's decision-making on Cyprus, writes Whelan on his Forbes blog.
Whelan has revised and updated his paper on TARGET2. The new paper adds more information and (he thinks) explains many of the issues better than the original draft that he circulated last November.
"I finished the new draft last weekend and felt it was too early to mention Cyprus in it. However, the discussion in the paper relating to a potential unilateral Greek exit is relevant to the situation in Cyprus.
The balance sheet of the Central Bank of Cyprus showed Intra-Eurosystem liabilities relating to TARGET2 of €8.9 billion at the end of January. It is likely that this figure increased over the subsequent period up until this week’s closure of Cpyriot banks.
Since the ECB acts as the “middleman” in the TARGET2 system, it would be likely that a decision by Cyprus to unilaterally repudiate its TARGET2 liabilities would lead to the ECB booking a loss and such a loss would wipe out most of, or possible more than, its level of capital.
Now before people go getting too excited about this, I suspect Cyprus would continue honouring its TARGET2 obligations even after an exit by paying the required low interest rate on euro-denominated liabilities. Also, the ECB is not the same thing as the Eurosystem. The balance sheet for the whole Eurosystem (including all the national central banks) shows almost half a trillion euros in capital and revaluation reserves. So people who worry about the Eurosystem needing to have assets that back its liabilities (not me, as you can see if you read the paper).
Still, some people (again not me) would wring their hands about the need for the national central banks to recapitalise the ECB and there would likely be a big media kerfuffle about this. Even though a default by Cyprus on its TARGET2 asset wouldn’t matter much in the grand scheme of things, I suspect this is an issue that senior staff at the ECB are very sensitive about. An unwillingness to let this TARGET2 balance get much bigger than current levels may be playing some role in the ECB’s decision-making on Cyprus."
Article
TARGET2 and Central Bank Balance Sheets: New Draft, March 17, 2013
Abstract: The euro area’s
TARGET2 payments system has featured heavily in academic and popular discussions of the euro crisis. Some of this commentary has described the system as being responsible for a “secret bailout” of Europe’s periphery. Another common theme has been that the system has built up large credit risks for Germany should the euro break up. This paper discusses the
TARGET2 system, focusing in particular on how it impacts the balance sheets of the central banks that participate in the system. It discusses the factors driving
TARGET2 balances, considers some counterfactual cases in which euro area monetary policy operated differently, examines the risks to Germany and considers proposals for settlement of these balances.
Full paper
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