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So the Hong-Kong currency board functions as a potential lender of last resort and a deposit insurer since it must hold enough foreign reserves to cover in full the aggregate liabilities of the private banks.

It also functions as a clearinghouse for interbank payment and settlement.

The role of the Fed is totally incidental here. They might as well have mandated that the HKMA must have enough gold reserves (or barrels of oil) to back all the banks' liabilities.

By laying out pros and cons we risk inducing people to join the debate, and losing control of a process that only we fully understand. - Alan Greenspan

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Jun 7th, 2010 at 09:24:25 AM EST
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The role of the Fed is also not unique since the mandate is on "foreign reserves" not "dollar reserves". This means potentially the mandate could be fulfilled by matching KH's monetary mass not only in quantity but in kind - Euro liabilities matched by Euro reserves, dollar by dollar, etc. What makes the USD special is that the internal HK liabilities are matched by USD reserves, but this need not be so.

By laying out pros and cons we risk inducing people to join the debate, and losing control of a process that only we fully understand. - Alan Greenspan
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Jun 7th, 2010 at 09:36:01 AM EST
[ Parent ]

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