Signal Currency and deposits fell from pandemic peaks but remain above pre-crisis levels

Summary

MGI tracks currency and deposits as a monetary signal of economic health, since they are assets for households, governments, and nonfinancial companies and liabilities for financial institutions, including central banks. These balances grow when depository banks extend loans or when central banks create base money, for instance through quantitative easing, while quantitative tightening slows their growth. In recent years, inflation together with quantitative tightening has pulled them down relative to GDP from pandemic-era highs in the United States, most European economies, and Japan. Even so, they remain higher than before the global financial crisis. China moved the other way, with money supply growing in 2025 alongside heavy bank lending.