The global financial crisis hit banks’ regulation at its core. As significant portion of this crisis’ responsibility has been attributed to the lack of effective banking oversight, there has been immense pressure on the next Basel agreement to tackle such issues in order to avoid future crises, or at least decrease their severity. In essence, the Basel accords mainly intend to gauge the level of capital required to protect banks against risks related to their assets. As a result, the latest accord, Basel III, has substantially increased the capital requirements of banks and introduced other features as an effort to increase the soundness of the banking system. The banking industry, however, has proclaimed that it would promote mainly negative outcomes throughout the global economy due to higher required capital ‘set aside’. In light of this contentious dynamic, this essay strives to give a balanced overview of the issues at stake, and to critically analyse the arguments advanced in the article attached to this document. As a result, it highlights Basel III’s potential positive and negative effects when fully implemented, as well as several credit rating agencies’ shortcomings, which were mainly exposed due to the financial crisis. Finally, it concludes by arguing that the article lacks essential information, and the banking industry’s reactions signal an attempt by a powerful industry to maintain its exorbitant privileges.
Although the article claims that Basel III will likely promote negative effects, such as an increase on the cost of credit to borrowers, it fails to acknowledge the potential benefits of that agreement. In fact, many substantial benefits are associated with Basel III, particularly those relating to increased b...
... middle of paper ...
...el III potential benefits and shortcomings, the article overemphasized the latter. This allows readers to have an incomplete understanding of the complexities relating to global banking regulation. Moreover, the article does not provide sufficient space to regulators elaborate the benefits. Instead, these are succinctly mentioned as a weak statement. A realistic evaluation of Basel III’s positive and negative effects shows that the former outweighs the latter when the safety and soundness of the global economy considered. It is plausible to argue, therefore, that the banking industry’s overreaction illustrates how a powerful industry, which has grown immensely due to deregulation, financial liberalization and lack of adequate oversight advanced, or at least allowed to, by national governments of the major global economies, has strived to keep its privileges intact.
In addition, the Federal Reserve did badly on supervision of the financial market. Many banks did not have enough ability to value their risk. The Federal Reserve and other supervision institution should require these banks to enhance their ability of risk valuing.
Banks exist to provide people with financial security. Banks accounts allow for people to store money for saving and investing purposes. People give their money to banks in hopes that the bank will take care of their money. However, history has shown as that banks cannot be completely trusted. For example, in the days of the Great Depression. During the years of President Roosevelt’s tenure, he attempted to make it easier for people to trust banks. Still, many years later, banks cannot be completely trusted. In 2008, the financial crisis was the worst since the Great Depression, and it stemmed primarily from banks’ abuse of people. Once again, there has been legislation to keep banks from abusing
The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act’s policies haven’t really been implemented to the extent that regulators would have liked. Although the legislation takes many steps in addressing systematic risks in the United States financial system and improving coordination among regulators, some critics believe that alternative options might have been more effective. The coming years will give us a better understanding of how well the Dodd-Frank Act addressed these concerns.
But most people within the economy do not know enough about the complexities of the banking system to voice their opinion in opposition to the bankers, politicians, and regulators. This is a central concern of Admati and Hellwig and one of their main motivating factors for writing The Banker’s New Clothes. Admati and Hellwig aimed to “demystify” the banking system in order to raise awareness to weaknesses in banking policies in hopes of triggering necessary reforms to banking principles that only benefit the bankers and politicians. They state, “Expanding the policy discussion beyond the circle of bankers and banking specialists is very important, because more action is urgently needed and yet has not been taken. The banking system is still much too fragile and dangerous. This system works for many bankers, but exposes most of us to unnecessary and costly risk, and it distorts the economy in significant ways (pg. 4).” Admati and Hellwig look to level the playing field for the general public by explaining the banking system and it’s flaws in clear terms that most people can understand. By doing this Admati and Hellwig hope to reduce the recurrent economic booms and busts that have such harsh consequences for people in compromised economic situations; which are
The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act was a direct response to the global financial crisis of 2008 and was put into effect on July 21st, 2010. The main purpose of the act was to reduce risk in the financial system to prevent a future financial crisis. In order to understand the Dodd-Frank Act and its effects, it is important to identify some of the key components behind the financial crisis. As such, a brief synopsis of the crisis will be given before delving into the implementation and effects of the Dodd-Frank Act. The key provisions to be focused on will be systemic risk regulation, the Volcker rule, and regulation of financial instruments.
In 1934, Switzerland passed the Federal Banking Act, imposing criminal penalties on bankers if they violated their prof...
When we talk about a debt limit, most people think of their credit card limit. The limit is set so you cannot overspend. It is the opposite when referring to the nation's debt limit, it is suppose to allow more borrowing power to the government (Przybyla). Currently, the nation's debt is "$16.7 trillion" (Przybyla). The recent government shutdown was because Republicans did not want to increase the debt ceiling (Przybyla). The fear of our country being downgraded for not paying our debts was a huge concern and both parties were urged to come to an agreement (Przybyla). The Democrats and President Obama would not negotiate so the Republicans conceded to a point, only temporarily extending the budget and the debt limit (Przybyla). What are the positions of the Democrats and the Republicans on the debt limit, and which side do you mostly agree with?
The "subprime crises" was one of the most significant financial events since the Great Depression and definitely left a mark upon the country as we remain upon a steady path towards recovering fully. The financial crisis of 2008, became a defining moment within the infrastructure of the US financial system and its need for restructuring. One of the main moments that alerted the global economy of our declining state was the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers on Sunday, September 14, 2008 and after this the economy began spreading as companies and individuals were struggling to find a way around this crisis. (Murphy, 2008) The US banking sector was first hit with a crisis amongst liquidity and declining world stock markets as well. The subprime mortgage crisis was characterized by a decrease within the housing market due to excessive individuals and corporate debt along with risky lending and borrowing practices. Over time, the market apparently began displaying more weaknesses as the global financial system was being affected. With this being said, this brings into question about who is actually to assume blame for this financial fiasco. It is extremely hard to just assign blame to one individual party as there were many different factors at work here. This paper will analyze how the stakeholders created a financial disaster and did nothing to prevent it as the credit rating agencies created an amount of turmoil due to their unethical decisions and costly mistakes.
After doing research in groups and alone and collecting information the Basel system is very helpful in stabilizing the financial position it has helped Australia a great deal it achieving milestone and becoming the 4th largest fund management industry.(lateral economic, 2007) and also discuses the ways other countries may use it too, as it explains the pros and cons of both the Basel and the AFS.
Midway through 2007 financial markets began to collapse on news of heavy write-downs by major financial institutions. The housing market in the United States (US), which had been experiencing consistent growth since 1975, began to contract in the third quarter of that year while the delinquency rate had been rising since 2006 (Mortgage Bankers Association, 2008). Investors were uncertain how severe the losses would be but it was becoming more likely by the end of the year that a financial crisis was imminent: the amount of subprime and collateralized debt obligation (CDO) losses had surpassed US$120 billion and were expected to increase in 2008 (Gaffen, 2008). As economic conditions turned from bad to worse investors, academics and practitioners began to wonder how such a crisis could have been precipitated in the first place. Blame was placed on mortgage originators, the Federal Reserve and on the investment banks, to name a few. The credit rating agencies (CRAs), seldom in the spotlight, were also heavily criticized for their role in causing the crisis. CRAs certainly do play an important part in financial markets and Thomas Friedman, the Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times columnist, once remarked that there are two superpowers in the world: the US and Moody’s (Lowenstein, 2008). But did the CRAs really deserve blame or were they being held as scapegoats? In the past the agencies generally avoided significant criticism for their rating of corporate debt and government issues, but their role in the burgeoning structured finance market in the early 2000s was characterized by conflict of interest issues, poor risk modeling and ineffective government regulation. As a result low quality ratings proliferated the mar...
In conclusion, we feel that the recommendation we have suggested in this report is a suitable foundation to build a sustainable and prudent financial system in this country. This will facilitate the financial industry both, withdraw out of this crisis and in the future avoid as much as possible inducing the scale of matters at present. As the report suggest, everyone contributed in their own miniscule way to this crisis, we feel that it’s up to every one of us to contribute to the overall recovery of this financial crises and recovery of the nation in general.
The globalization of business has resulted in the need for compatible accounting standards that can be used internationally for financial reporting. As a result, the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) were developed by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) to unify the various financial reporting methods and create a single accounting standard which can be applied to any financial statement worldwide (Byatt). The global standardization of financial reporting will increase the readability and enhance comparability of globally traded companies’ financial statements, without the need of conversion or translation. There are a few main differences between the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and the U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (U.S GAAP). The increasing recognition and acceptance of the International Financial Reporting Standards by accounting professionals in the United States, will affect the way in which the U.S will record financial statements in the future.
The International Accounting Standards Board, (IASB), began life as the International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC) in the 1973. The IASC was created in June 1973 as a result of an agreement by the accountancy bodies of Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Ireland and the United States. These countries constituted the Board of IASC at that time.
Warwick J. McKibbin, and Andrew Stoeckel. “The Global Financial Crisis: Causes and Consequences.” Lowy Institute for International Policy 2.09 (2009): 1. PDF file.
While banking and financial institutions have play an important role in contributing the economic growth by collecting and allocating the resources to those who in need of finance, it also can bring the financial chaos to the economy as well. Since this industry is a sentitive and fragile one, the banking superivision is required to monitor on the banking system aiming to identify and measure risks in order to protect not only the financial institutions but also the customers from the contagious risk that would happen without any alert. Moreover, banking supervision is established in order to protect depositors against avoidable losses, thereby contributing to confidence in the financial system and the