Deposit Insurance around the World

Open Access

Abstract

In the past two decades, in a series of banking crises around the world, banks have become systematically insolvent. These crises have occurred in developed and developing economies alike. To make such financial system breakdowns less likely and to limit their costs if they occur, policymakers feel the need for financial safety nets. These include such policies as implicit or explicit deposit insurance, a lender of last resort function of the central bank, bank insolvency resolution procedures, and bank regulation and supervision. Of these policies, explicit deposit insurance has been gaining popularity in recent years. Since the 1980s the number of countries with explicit deposit insurance schemes almost tripled, with most OECD countries and an increasing number of developing economies adopting some form of explicit depositor protection. In 1994 deposit insurance became the standard for the newly created single banking market of the European Union. Establishing an explicit deposit insurance scheme became part of the generally accepted best practice advice given to developing economies.