By now everyone should be aware of the drama in the US surrounding Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), Signature Bank, and many other unnamed banks that a “senior Treasury official” said might have similar issues. Essentially these banks attracted a lot of deposits by offering favourable conditions and then used the cash to buy long-dated government bonds, making a silly, unhedged bet that rates would stay low and they could profit on the interest differential.

In March 2020, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) created the $200 billion Term Funding Facility (TFF), essentially a slush fund for banks that locked-in three-years' worth of funding at rates well below what was available on global wholesale markets. Given the uncertain times, one could mount an argument for its creation – COVID-19 had just started to be taken seriously and the RBA was concerned about Armageddon.