Surety bonds and moral hazard in banking

We examine a policy in which owners of banks provide funds in the form of a surety bond in addition to equity capital. This policy would require banks to provide the regulator with funds that could be invested in marketable securities. Investors in the bank receive the income from the surety bond as long as the bank is in business. The capital value could be used by bank regulators to pay off the banks" liabilities in case of bank failure. After paying depositors, investors would receive the remaining funds, if any. Analytically, this instrument is a way of creating charter value but, as opposed to Keeley (1990) and Hellman, Murdock and Stiglitz (2000), restrictions on competition are not necessary to generate positive rents. We demonstrate that capital requirements alone cannot prevent the moral hazard problem arising from deposit insurance.This research is partially funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, project PID2020-114108GB-I00. We also thank the financial support from Comunidad de Madrid (Programa Excelencia para el Profesorado Universitario, convenio con Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, V Plan Regional de Investigación Científica e Innovación Tecnológica, EPUC3M12) and from project CODEM-UHU from HES-SO