Banks

Banking mergers are absolutely not the answer to the banking problems today – in fact, they would constitute a dangerous leap forward.

As stated by La Tribune, “Emmanuel Macron wishes the implementation of the European Banking Union – a system for joint management of bank failures – to be finalised as soon as possible in order to draw lessons from the Euro zone’s debt crisis.” Well, alright, but why is it so urgent? Is the Frenc...

Many banks are ailing in Europe, notably in Italy, Greece and Spain, but Deutsche Bank, sitting at the core of Europe’s largest and most competitive economy, is like an atomic bomb that could spark a worldwide financial crisis, just like Lehman Brothers did in the past. Even Mario Draghi, ordinar...

U.S. prosecutors on Monday announced that they had settled charges against three European banking giants, HSBC, UBS and Deutsche Bank, for manipulating the markets for precious metals, including gold and silver, and filed charges against eight people, including some of their former traders.

There is a new alert out for banks and this time, it’s coming from a regulating agency worried of their capacity to weather an eventual next crisis. The alert was sounded by the FSB (Financial Stability Board), the G20’s organism in charge of financial regulation.

Even if its goals are laudable, a tough regulation always generates perverse effects. Such is the case with Basel III, and it’s a shame, because it’s the solidity of our banks that is concerned.

Incredibly, banks’ wishes have come true in the very first week of 2013 ! Should we rejoice ? Well, not really, because one of the main dispositions of Basel III, where prudential norms of the world banking sector are being discussed, has been emptied of its substance. The crisis of 2008 has sho...