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.
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
