This paper empirically investigates the effect of interbank relationship lending on banks' access to liquidity. Our analysis is based on German interbank payment data which we use to create a panel of unsecured overnight loans between 1079 distinct borrower-lender pairs. The data shows that banks rely on repeated interactions with the same counterparties to trade liquidity. For the price of liquidity, we find that in the run-up to the recent financial crisis of 2007/08 relationship lenders charged already higher interest rates to their borrowers after controlling for other bank specific characteristics and general market conditions. By contrast, during the crisis borrowers paid on average lower rates to their relationship lenders compared to spot lenders. The observed interest rate differences are statistically and economically significant and in line with theory that relationship lenders have private information about the creditworthiness of their close borrowers.

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Global banks use their global balance sheets to respond to local monetary policy. However, sources and uses of funds are often denominated in different currencies. This leads to a foreign exchange (FX) exposure that banks need to hedge. If cross-currency flows are large, the hedging cost increases, diminishing the return on lending in foreign currency. We show that, in response to domestic monetary policy easing, global banks increase their foreign reserves in currency areas with the highest interest rate, while decreasing lending in these markets. We also find an increase in FX hedging activity and its rising cost, as manifested in violations of covered interest rate parity. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may

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At least one co-author has disclosed a financial relationship of potential relevance for this research. Further information is available online at http://www.nber.org/papers/w25185.ack NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.