# Harry Potter and the Goblin Bank of Gringotts

## TL;DR

This paper models the financial stability of Gringotts Wizarding Bank, analyzing the effects of splitting it into smaller entities versus maintaining its monopoly, under various stress scenarios involving magical and non-magical crises.

## Contribution

It introduces a simulation framework for assessing the systemic risk of a monopolistic wizarding bank and compares the economic resilience of unified versus divided banking systems.

## Key findings

- Splitting the bank reduces systemic risk under certain stress scenarios.
- A divided system requires less capital injection to prevent crises.
- Monopoly status increases vulnerability to financial shocks.

## Abstract

Gringotts Wizarding Bank is well known as the only financial institution in all of the Wizarding UK as documented in the works recounting the heroics of Harry Potter. The concentration of power and wealth in this single bank needs to be weighed against the financial stability of the entire Wizarding economy. This study will consider the impact to financial risk of breaking up Gringotts Wizarding Bank into five component pieces, along the lines of the Glass-Steagall Act in the United States. The emphasis of this work is to calibrate and simulate a model of the banking and financial systems within Wizarding UK under varying stress test scenarios simulating rumors of Lord Voldemort's return or the release of magical creatures into an unsuspecting muggle populace. We conclude by comparing the economic fallout from financial crises under the two systems: (i) Gringotts Wizarding Bank as a monopoly and (ii) the split-up financial system. We do this comparison on the level of minimal system-wide capital injections that would be needed to prevent the financial crisis from surpassing the damage caused by Lord Voldemort.