Depending on whose estimate you prefer, somewhere between $5tn and $27tn sits idle in prefunded nostro and vostro accounts around the world.
The larger figure is widely attributed to the Bank for International Settlements and has become the standard reference in recent industry analysis
The industry has spent a remarkable amount of energy arguing about which figure is right. It is the wrong argument. Whatever the true number, it measures the same thing: how much capital the global financial system has to immobilise to compensate for uncertainty it cannot otherwise resolve.
The number is the price. The question worth asking is what the system is paying for. Two narratives currently compete to answer that question, and both are wrong.