BIS Review 160/2009  13  declined. When the situation on the financial markets normalises we expect the credit multiplier to return to its earlier level (Figure 14). 3 Figure 14 The credit multiplier SEK billion and ratio 2500  20 M oney supply M 2 (left scale) M onetary base (left scale) Credit multiplier (right scale)  18  2000  16 14  1500  12 10  1000  8 6  500  4 2  0  0 02  03  04  05  06  07  08  09  10  11  12  13  Note. M2 consists of the general public’s holdings of banknotes and coins and their deposits in the banks on call and other deposits at longer durations. The broken line gives an example of a possible adjustment to a normal level. Sources: Statistics Sweden and the Riksbank. The Riksbank’s capital currently amounts to around SEK 64 billion. The return on the capital is intended to fund the Riksbank’s activities. It should also cover any losses that might arise in the Riksbank's activities. This could be losses arising in the daily management of the Riksbank's financial assets or when the Riksbank provides liquidity assistance to the banks. One item on the balance sheet that has increased over the past year is the revaluation account. This is where unrealised gains and losses are booked that comprise the difference between the purchase value and current market value of the Riksbank’s assets.
An ordinary person, with a few hundred or a few thousand dollars to invest, may find it perfectly convenient to invest in currency, and to store most of it in a safety-deposit box, one that the person may well have already rented to store important papers or other valuables. A large corporation, in contrast, likely would find dealing in  BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  currency extremely costly. So the proposition may be refined further to state that different economic agents will be more or less willing to invest in negative rate investments to the extent that diseconomies of scale make their costs of handling currency higher or lower than others’. Vaults introduce some additional considerations affecting the costs of holding currency. Often, the costs of holding currency securely, by having a safety deposit box or a vault, are fixed costs. Once one has a vault, or has rented a safety deposit box, the costs of storing additional currency in it, up to its capacity, is nil. This suggests that there is a dynamic element to the economics of avoiding negative interest rates: the longer the negative rates are expected to persist, and the lower they are, the more favorable are the returns to investing in a vault. Once the vault investment has been made, maintaining negative rates would likely become more difficult.