How do banks typically treat their liabilities?

Banks typically treat their liabilities as the total amount of deposits held. This is because liabilities for a bank consist mainly of customer deposits, which the bank must account for and manage appropriately. These deposits are obligations that the bank needs to return to its customers and are considered essential to the bank's balance sheet. By effectively managing these liabilities, banks can ensure they have enough liquidity to meet customer withdrawal requests and other obligations.

While the other options may touch on certain aspects of banking, they do not accurately describe how banks typically view their liabilities. For instance, while banks do generate profit from the use of deposits, they fundamentally regard the deposits as liabilities since they represent money that needs to be paid back. Similarly, although managing liabilities can be important to the overall financial health of a bank, they are not treated primarily as assets or as indicators of financial stability in the way that deposits themselves are classified.