Banks see best cash position in decades

Despite the pandemic and economic downturn of the past 19 months, banks are in a better cash position than they’ve been in 30 years — a position no bank thought was possible a year ago when they were shoring up their loan loss reserves in anticipation of a huge wave of pandemic-related loan defaults that didn’t materialize.

Many banks beat their pandemic forecasts. They provisioned a lot more money in the second half of 2020 to pay for expected losses but, in the end, those funds weren’t needed.

Now, those banks are shifting those funds around again, looking for good personal and…