Lehmans – one year on: have we learned the lessons?
Gavyn Davies: Quit stalling on capital reform
Although banks often get carried away by a reckless search for short-term profits, they are not stupid enough to ignore the near-death experience of September 2008. The best hope for reform is that the large institutions see it as being in their own interest to rein in risk. However, in case memories are indeed short, governments need to agree on a system in which the capital requirements imposed on the banks are increased as lending and asset prices rise during the next boom. This is a much better way of preventing excessive risk-taking than political grandstanding on pay, (which is annoying but not the core of the problem) or the FSA idea of a Tobin tax on all financial market trading (which hits the wrong targets).… Seguir leyendo »