As year-end approaches, bankers are rarely in a mood to spray cash around. Banks’ propensity to hoard this time last year – even before the wave of failures – was serious enough to lead to the creation by the US Federal Reserve of the first special liquidity vehicle, the term auction facility. This year, with the global economy desiccating by the day, liquidity is scarcer still.

In Hong Kong – a city-state utterly dependent on the free movement of goods and capital – the rivulets of cash swilling round the system are at their shallowest since records began. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the de facto central bank, has become a reluctant sponge. Aggregate balances have grown to over HK$80bn – more than 40 times the long-run average.