IMF announcement about success of its policies towards Eastern Europe EBRD warned that that part of Europe bad debt is underestimated.
European Commission's demand that Western banks get rid of non-core assets could prompt these lenders to sell off Eastern and Central European subsidiaries and further tighten credit to the region. (...)
Persistently weak credit growth and uncertainty over the banking system make the pace of economic recovery uneven and could hold the region back in the coming years (...)
For many countries we see continued deterioration. The diversity within the region is important to keep in mind...Even for countries that have turned the corner we look forward to slow and fragile growth
Polish Central Bank warned in its newly published report that Poland can exceed the level of internal debt at 7 percent of GDP as early as 2010.
Here are my notes from that very interesting discussion on the need
of regulation in financial sector.
Lawrence K. Fish (CEO)
I. How devastating that crisis was?
the country’s residential mortgage lender failed
the country’s of largest commercial banks failed
largest insurance company failed
massive governmental mortgage assemblies Fanie and Freddie
2 of the largest UK banks failed
largest bank in Belgium failed
largest bank in Holland failed
tens of billions of dollars were lost by banks in Switzerland, Germany, China, Russia
95 US banks out of 2800 ceased to exist
Sins of financial sector
- too much leverage
- too complex products
- too little transparency and risk management
- too little involvement of Board of Directors
II. What is that you haven’t read about this?
- Not every countries banking system got it wrong, most notably Canada, Brazil, and Australia. Why they did not have consequences of that economic collapse?
* regulations
It was unusual that it was consumer crisis. Because it was always that consumer lending was the place that everyone wanted to be, place that was easy to underwrite and where never would be problems.
Real key, central risk in banking is liquidity.
Most banks in USA did fine.
Banks are heavily regulated institutions. Who isn’t regulated? Hedge funds, private equity firms, pay-day lenders, remittance companies (Western Union), investment banks were lightly regulated, mortgage companies (regulated by states but no standards for them exist)
III. What’s gonna happen now?
It’s not clear whether we will be able to fix it so it would not happen again.
IV. It’s matter of ethics in business
I. Is greed good?
II. Issue of capital for banks – how much capital is enough?
III. How not to over regulate. Dangers: lost of competitiveness, unavailability of credit to consumers
