united-states banking
Is there a US institution that is exempt from liquidity ratio laws?
<p>This question has been bothering me for a while and I did some digging and turned up nothing...</p>
<p>In the Netflix show Ozark, season 1 episode 1, Marty is at his bank trying to liquidate millions of dollars worth of assets so that he can move his family into the Ozarks so the cartel dudes don't come after him, and the vice president of the bank is trying to say he doesn't have the money to give to him and Marty responds:</p>
<p>&quot;Unless you're the vice president of the one institution in the US that is exempt from the liquidity ratio laws that govern every other bank in America, I suggest you [call] the Federal Reserve... and you order yourself up a [lot] of cash&quot;</p>
<p>Is this a real thing? Is there a US banking institution that is exempt from these laws, and if so what is it?</p>

<p>I think that this is an awkward reference to the Treasury Department of the United States government (upon which the Fed cannot impose liquidity ratios).</p>
<p>By the way, this isn't really literally true.</p>
<p>Liquidity ratio requirements apply only to regulated financial institutions, and there are many closely held non-financial businesses that aren't primarily in the lending business, which extend credit and can as a result end up with very low liquidity ratios that can still legally lend money in the course of their business.</p>
<p>&quot;Grandma's feed store&quot;, for example, could extend credit to customers far beyond what any financial institution could lend due to liquidity ratio limitations, without violating any liquidity ratio regulations, since there are no such regulations for feed stores.</p>
