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I think they are describing what is termed "brokered deposits" -- like your Starbucks gift card account isn't managed by Starbucks, but rather a (usually large) bank on the backend which treats brokered deposits differently than unbrokered (standard) deposits.

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Hmmm, possibly. However you are describing an operational reality and the author was using financial reporting terms. And specifically if something like "people gave a bunch of money to what they thought was us" isn't on the balance sheet, it's a big red fraud flag

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