To finance the off-balance-sheet assets, the government set deposit interest rates at very low levels: 1% or so.

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It arranged a deal to buy Wachovia (nyse: WB - news - people ) that would have involved moving troubled assets off the combined company's balance sheet with the assistance of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

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Citi should be able to take the losses in its stride, given its enormous balance sheet and low cost of funds (thanks to cheap deposit funding).

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Having a commercial bank would boost Morgan Stanley's efforts to use its balance sheet to attract more investment banking business, bring it a cheap source of deposit gathering and also bring it a fund-processing business.

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