Banks

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...