Whenever a crisis hits, interest in guarantee arrangements rises. The current financial crisis is no exception in that respect. It puts the spotlight on the operation of the financial safety net and provides policymakers with a timely opportunity to monitor its performance, with a view to identifying its strengths and weaknesses. The present note focuses on the way parts of the financial safety net are combined, putting special emphasis on deposit insurance and its interaction with other safety net elements. While it also includes a discussion of recent policy actions in that context, the note centres on structural rather than practical crisis resolution issues.

At its meeting in March 2008, the OECD Committee on Financial Markets (CMF) discussed selected financial safety net issues within the Tour d’ Horizon on Financial Markets based on a background note prepared by the Secretariat. The note highlighted the importance of various aspects of the design of financial safety nets and in particular of explicit deposit insurance systems. It argued that it was too early to draw any strong policy lessons from recent developments regarding the effects of the turbulence and the adequacy of the financial safety net, but that some preliminary lessons were emerging concerning selected aspects of the design of deposit insurance systems. These included that, as regards coverage, deposit insurance systems with low levels of coverage and/or partial insurance may not be effective in preventing bank runs.