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In some countries, governments require banks to meet high rates of the reserve ratios, and use the reserves as a method to generate revenues. Since reserves earn no interest, they function as an implicit tax on banks and restrict banks from allocating a certain portion of their portfolios to productive investments and loans. If high reserve requirements are combined with interest ceilings and protective government directives for certain borrowers, savers who are usually unaware of the requirement policy become the main taxpayers because they face reduced rates of interest on their savings. Inflation can aggravate the reserve tax because it reduces the real rates of interest.

Thus, high reserves requirements make the best use of the government's monopolistic power to generate seigniorage revenue as well as to regulate reserve requirements. A variant of this policy includes required liquidity ratios; that is when banks are required to allocate a certain fraction of their deposits to holding government securities that usually yield a return lower than could be obtained in the market.

Governments often impose a ceiling on the interest rate banks can offer to depositors.

Interest ceilings function in the same way as price controls, and thereby provide banks with economic rents. Like high required reserve ratios, those rents benefit incumbent banks and provide tax sources for the government, paid for by savers and by borrowers or would-be-borrowers. The rents borne by the interest ceiling reduce the number of loans available in the market thereby discouraging both saving and investment. In return for allowing incumbent banks to reap rents, the government often require banks to make subsidized loans to certain borrowers for the purpose of implementing industrial policy (or simply achieving political goals).

Interest ceilings in high inflation countries can victimize savers because high inflation can make the real interest rates of return negative. Financial repression also takes the form of government directives for banks to allocate credit at subsidized rates to specific firms and industries to implement industrial policy. Forcing banks to allocate credit to industries that are perceived to be strategically important for industrial policy ensures stable provision of capital rather than leaving it to decisions of disinterested banks or to efficient securities markets. It is also more cost effective than going through the public sector's budgetary process.

Government directives and guidance sometimes include detailed orders and instructions on managerial issues of financial institutions to ensure that their behaviour and business is in line with industrial policy or other government policies. The Japanese Ministry of Finance (MOF) is a typical example of government's micromanagement of financial industry.

Capital controls are restrictions on the inflows and outflows of capital and are also financially repressive policies. Despite their virtues, the use of capital controls can involve costs. Because of their uncompetitive nature, capital controls increases the cost of capital by creating financial autarky; limits both domestic and foreign investors' ability to diversify portfolios; and helps inefficient financial institutions survive.

Impacts of Financial Repression
Because financial repression leads to inefficient allocation