The Reserve Bank of Australia board has conceded that the $188 billion in cheap credit it extended to banks during the pandemic may have been excessive and not enough work was done to forecast the significant financial losses the central bank incurred.

At least $43 billion in pandemic-era losses have forced the RBA to suspend paying multibillion-dollar annual dividends to the federal government and plunged the central bank’s balance sheet into negative equity, meaning the value of its liabilities exceeds assets.