MARKETS / GLOSSARY / DEPOSITS

Deposits

Deposits is the money customers have placed with a bank. On the bank's balance sheet it is a liability, not an asset: the bank owes it back.

Definition

How it is computed here

Formulaas reported on the balance sheet of a deposit-taking institution
UnitCurrency amount
PeriodOne fiscal year, as reported
SourceExtracted from SEC filings; every value on an asset page carries the accounting tag and the filing it came from
Identifierdepositos
The inputs

What goes into the formula

Interest-bearing depositsSavings and time accounts on which the bank pays.
Non-interest-bearing depositsCurrent accounts and similar. The cheapest funding a bank can have, and the reason two banks of the same size can have very different costs.

A formula without its inputs explained is decoration. Where an input is missing from a filing, the metric is left empty here rather than completed with a zero or an estimate.

Worked example

How to calculate deposits, step by step

A bank's balance sheet, which reads inside out compared with a manufacturer's.

Total assets (mostly loans)$120,000M
Deposits$95,000M
Shareholders' equity$12,000M
Net income$1,500M
  1. Return on assets = 1,500 ÷ 120,000 = 1.25%.
  2. Return on equity = 1,500 ÷ 12,000 = 12.5%.
  3. Equity funds 12,000 ÷ 120,000 = 10% of the balance sheet; depositors fund most of the rest.

Result: $95,000M of deposits funding $120,000M of assets

This is why a bank's ROA looks tiny and its ROE does not. The whole model is running a large asset base on a thin sliver of owners' money, with depositors supplying the difference.

The figures in this example are illustrative and rounded — they are not a real company. The real figures on this site are the live ones below and on every asset page, each carrying the filing it came from.

Why it matters

What deposits is good for

For a bank, deposits are the business. They are the cheapest and stickiest funding available, and the line explains why bank ratios cannot be read with the same instincts as an industrial company's. On this site the field appears only where the company reports it, which is one of the clearest signals that you are looking at a deposit-taking institution.

The limit

What this number does not tell you

A single total says nothing about how quickly the money can leave. Deposits from a million households behave differently from a few very large corporate balances, and the balance sheet line does not distinguish — which is exactly the distinction that has decided the fate of failed banks. It also says nothing about what the deposits cost, or about how much of the balance is insured.

Every metric on this site is published with its blind spot stated. A figure without its limit is half a fact.

Advertisement
AdSense · Leaderboard 728×90 · responsive
In the data

Highest reported deposits

From the most recent fiscal year of each company. Only companies reporting in US dollars are ranked here — a figure in yen or won is not larger, it is in another currency.

On a real company

See it in a published filing

Their sectors

These pages show the figure across up to nineteen fiscal years, with the accounting tag and the filing behind every value.

Related

Read next