There's another paper by Richard W that I happened to read yesterday which seems to contradict this article and is not refuted or addressed in it, basically that a combination of accouting practices and "client money rules" distinguish bank loans from "random IOUs", basically anyone can issue an IOU but anyone other than a bank has to draw down their accounting assets when they disburse it, and undisbursed IOUs are not spendable.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S105752191...