It’s bad enough having the most expensive bank bailout around. But not getting official recognition for it? Unbearable!
Luckily for Ireland, there’s a concerted effort underway to right that wrong… (h/t Nama Wine Lake) Read more
It’s bad enough finding out that you’ve been made redundant when your pass fails to let you in to the building. But finding out that you’ve been sacked and replaced by a computer (which has more or less made your skills redundant)? That’s even worse.
So spare a thought for David Gallers, former head of CDS index trading at UBS, who was let go last week, to be replaced by snazzy new algo. Read more
Here’s a talking point: “Socially useful banking.”
As luck would have it, Lisa Pollack has been invited to chair a discussion on this very topic, featuring none other than FT Alphaville favourite, Andy Haldane. (Mr Haldane is the Bank of England’s executive director for financial stability but you knew that.) Read more
Here are some charts we knocked up (in our usual MS paint, so excuse the pixelation) to try and explain why the banking system’s biggest problem may lie in ‘negative carry’ — a phenomenon that would make investment-focused lending unprofitable, pushing the onus instead on pariah-profits extracted from economically destructive practices.
We begin with the following (click to expand): Read more
There are many gems in the annual report of the Bank of International Settlements that came out on Sunday. One of the most intriguing is a trail which leads to an actual estimate of the cost to society of scientists becoming hedge fund managers.
The trail starts at a section about debt sustainability across a number of countries. It notes that elevated levels of debt got us into this crisis and the situation still hasn’t improved for many countries. In fact, for some countries, the debt burden of the private sector has gotten even worse. Check out the last row of these charts on debt service ratios (looking at the red lines): Read more
It’s a commonly-held belief that the bailout of Spain’s banks won’t be sufficient to solve the country’s problems. It will increase the government’s borrowing, and may not be large enough anyway.
The real solution is fiscal banking political some kind of union. See if you can spot one of the barriers to moving forward with that: Read more
It has come to FT Alphaville’s attention that the NYMag is admirably trying to completely prepare the latest crop of would-be bankers for their summer sojourn as interns.
For those in NYC, there is advice on where to live. For those who haven’t clocked that working at a bank involves dressing up in a suit and not having a ridiculous haircut, there’s advice on what to wear and appearance. Finally, there’s advice on what to do, and what most definitely not to do, inside and outside the work environment. Read more
Banking in Europe boomed upon the creation of the euro and the global expansion of credit in the 2000s. In the US, banks were also riding high on strong assets growth and accompanying increases in market capitalisation. Cross-border claims also climbed as banks sought to grab an even bigger share outside their domestic markets.
Things have since changed. Read more
A particularly eagle-eyed FT Alphaville reader noticed this when strolling in the heat of Miami Beach:
Time for more BIS-timates of international banking activity — this time looking at developments in the deleveraging turn among eurozone lenders in late 2011.
These stats from the Bank for International Settlements go up to the end of December. Predictably they show a massive pullback in credit throughout the banking system with Europe and the eurozone leading the way. Read more
Royal Bank of Scotland is to cut an additional 3,500 jobs as the state-controlled bank rapidly shrinks its investment banking activities in response to the worsening economic outllook and wide ranging reforms of the banking sector due to take effect before the end of the decade, the FT reports. Stephen Hester, chief executive, on Thursday outlined plans to restructure RBS’ wholesaling or investment banking operations into two divisions and withdraw from activities such as cash equity broking and merger and acquisition advisory work that were aggressively expanded by former disgraced chief executive Sir Fred Goodwin. Risk weighted assets, under Basel III regulatory definitions, will be shrunk to £150bn from £225bn under the restruring plan. The bank will continue to operate in the fixed income and debt raising markets where it has a strong position but reduce its dependence on wholesale funding markets which have frozen up in the last three years. Since taking over in 2009, Mr Hester has shrunk RBS’s balance sheet by £600bn following the disastrous acquisition of Dutch bank ABN Amro in 2008 by Sir Fred, which forced the bank to seek a government bail-out. Read more
Andy Haldane’s latest speech is a coherent, logically argued history of modern banking that ends with four intriguing policy ideas. The Bank of England’s Executive Director, Financial Stability, is always worth reading but his Wincott Annual Memorial Lecture, delivered on Monday evening, is the best introduction to his views on banks.
The FT’s Martin Wolf includes a cogent summary of Haldane’s proposals as part of his formal response to the speech, highlights of which are available on his blog. Read more
Ireland’s stricken banking sector will require €24bn in additional capital, pushing the total cost of the government’s rescue to about €70bn (£62bn), according to the country’s latest banking “stress tests”, reports the FT. Also on Thursday, Dublin announced a radical shake-up of the industry aimed at restoring confidence in the troubled sector, which remains dependent on the European Central Bank for funding. Allied Irish Banks, which had been told to raise an additional €5.3bn, must now raise €13.3bn. Bank of Ireland must raise €5.2bn, Irish Life & Permanent €4bn and Educational Building Society €1.5bn. Essentially, says the WSJ, Ireland is on track to nationalise its banking sector, belying politicians’ claims that the tests are the final episode in the country’s banking crisis. Read more
UBS has tried to draw a line under its upheavals during the global credit crisis, acknowledging serious errors but declining again to take legal action against former top managers, the FT reports. In a 69-page “transparency report” prompted by a Swiss parliamentary committee this year, UBS reviewed the causes of its writedowns on toxic securities and its separate bruising crisis prompted by private bankers helping rich American clients to evade tax. “What happened should not have been allowed to happen,” said Kaspar Villiger, chairman. The losses were attributed to the bank’s drive for growth in investment banking, notably by originating and distributing structured products that were based on US mortgages. The group also acknowledged that its risk controls had been based too heavily on statistical models – while ratings supplied by external agencies were seldom questioned. Read more
Visa has told banks they must stop using the payment system of Chinese state-backed China UnionPay to process international transactions for co-branded Visa and UnionPay credit cards, as required by operating regulations, the FT reported. If banks did not comply with Visa’s request, the card company said it would start to charge penalties from August 1. China UnionPay replied: “Neither side has the right to unilaterally restrict cardholders’ options for overseas payment channels.” Read more
China’s budding investment banks have zoomed to the top of Asia’s all-important league tables, and they’ve even begun to win business outside the mainland, according to the WSJ’s Deal Journal blog. The test now, the blog said, will be whether they can build on recent success, or whether they follow the same path as Japan’s banks – which have gained prominence but are still struggling to expand outside their home turf. Read more
Financial services professionals in Australia might do better if they ditched their spreadsheets for hard hats, because according to Bloomberg, the real money is in mining. But as FT Alphaville points out, miners — like bankers — will find their incomes hit by a sharp tax increase. Read more
Want to ensure that your bank is well-managed? Then appoint a cynical Scotsman to its audit committee.
Such was the advice proffered, in apparent seriousness, by the UK’s City Minister Paul Myners to a commission on the future of banking. Read more
John Cassidy, writing in the latest edition of the New Yorker, tells the story of London’s Millennium Bridge in a long, slow-burn introduction to a longer and (by now) very familiar discussion of what went wrong in the Great Crunch.
The Millennium Bridge, of course, proved alarmingly unstable after it was opened by the Queen in June 2000. It was quickly dubbed the “wobbly bridge” after pedestrians noticed it swaying – and the structure had to be closed while the architect Sir Norman Foster and the engineering firm Arup figured out what to do. Read more
Over at the Economist’s Free exchange blog, a handful of top-flight economists (as one would expect) have been engaged in a lively debate on the optimal size and complexity of developing countries’ financial systems.
Mark Thoma has been keeping track of the roundtable, which is hosted by Justin Lin, the chief economist at the World Bank and which kicked off with a guest essay by Lin in the print edition of the Economist and migrated online. [As an aside, clever integration there guys] Read more
Alistair Darling’s blueprint for reforming the financial regulatory regime on Wednesday failed to impress the City and drew withering fire from the Conservatives, who vowed to reverse the report’s main proposals should the party win the next election, the FT reported. The City, meanwhile, reacted coolly to the proposals. “This is just a deferral of any decisions until after a general election,” one senior banking executive told the FT. Read more
Alistair Darling will outline a tough regulatory regime for the financial services industry on Wednesday that would impose heavier capital and liquidity standards on banks that pose the greatest risk to the financial system. The UK chancellor will instruct the FSA to draw up stricter rules for the riskiest banks and financial institutions, but is not contemplating more drastic action to break up the biggest lenders, the FT said. The new rules will also impose curbs on bankers’ pay, according to the Times, which said banking executives will have their pay linked to long term profitability. Read more
Via Reuters columnist John Kemp, here’s a dose of chart porn.
The charts below show the performance of banking equities (via indices) year to date. Chart one renders the performance in local currency terms, and chart two in common currency. Click on the charts for the full-sized versions: Read more
We’ve no idea what this new web site is or does but we’ve signed up for e-mail alerts.
1The end of QE?
2Man walks into a gold bar. Au!
3The persistent supply-side constraints in US housing
4Bird, plane, Abe
5Bove vs Bloomberg, redux
Show more6A glorious episode in the history of the Revenue
7Stress you next year
8Abenomics passes an early test
9The short arm of the SEC
10Breaking up is hard to do - Rio Tinto edition
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