Business News
Panic over but Australians still keen on cash
Sep 17, 2009, 23:56 GMT
Sydney - Australians were stuffing so much cash under the mattress at the start of the global financial crisis a year ago that the central bank almost ran out of high-denomination banknotes, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) said Friday.
The RBA reported that banknotes in circulation rose 19 per cent as worried depositors withdrew cash for fear that banks would fail.
No major Australian financial institution crashed, and the government was not called on to bail one out. As it turned out, Australia didn't even slip into the technical recession of two consecutive quarters of economic contraction.
The latest RBA annual report reveals that panic has not been completely replaced by calm. At least 4 billion Australian dollars (3.4 billion US dollars) withdrawn a year ago has not been deposited back into bank accounts.
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