Favoring overnight or very short-term loans to other depositories and limiting term loans give banks the flexibility to reduce one type of asset if others grow or to reduce the entire size of the balance sheet to maintain capital leverage ratios if losses unexpectedly subtract from capital. Finally, banks may be worried about access to liquidity in turbulent markets.
Moreover, when those affected brought waterlogged or burnt cash to financial institutions, they were able to exchange it for new cash.