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Coastal Roy

Coastal Roy has written 131 posts for The Financial Regulation Forum

Sensible rules to regulate risk

By Coastal Roy ⋅ 8 January, 2010 ⋅ Post a comment

Sheila C. Bair looks to be leading the regulatory race to the top. The agency she oversees, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, recently unveiled a handful of clever ideas to contain risky bank behavior and protect the nation’s deposit insurance fund. Rival watchdogs fighting for turf will find it difficult to ignore the F.D.I.C.’s latest [...]

Lax oversight caused crisis

By Coastal Roy ⋅ 5 January, 2010 ⋅ Post a comment

Regulatory failure, not low interest rates, was responsible for the housing bubble and subsequent financial crisis of the last decade, Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, said in a speech on Sunday. Bernanke’s remarks, perhaps his strongest language yet assessing the roots of the financial crisis, came as he sought greater regulatory authority from Congress. “Stronger [...]

NY Fed may toughen funding standards

By Coastal Roy ⋅ 24 December, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

The Federal Reserve today took a step toward improving the plumbing of the short-term funding markets for banks and securities dealers that locked up during the heat of the financial crisis. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York has set up a task force of Wall Street banks to figure out how to make this [...]

Basel Committee proposes stronger rules for banks

By Coastal Roy ⋅ 18 December, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

Banks should hold on to more of their earnings and improve the quality of their assets to guard against the kind of shocks that brought the financial system to the brink of collapse, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, BCBS, said Thursday. The BIS-hosted BCBS brings together central bankers and regulators from around the world, [...]

Cheques to go by 2018!

By Coastal Roy ⋅ 17 December, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

The death knell for cheques has been sounded after the decision on Wednesday by the UK Payments Council [see below] to abolish the national cheque clearing system, a move that in effect makes the 350-year-old cheque payment system redundant. There has been a steady fall in the use of cheques in the UK over the [...]

Obama: Banks have a duty to take “extraordinary” steps

By Coastal Roy ⋅ 16 December, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

President Barack Obama told executives from some of the nation’s largest banks yesterday they have a duty to take “extraordinary” steps to boost lending and help the US economy after getting a taxpayer bailout. Financial institutions were rescued from a crisis “largely of their own making,” he said, and now must help homeowners and small [...]

‘Too big to fail’ spurs on financial cowboys

By Coastal Roy ⋅ 14 December, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

Three reasons why governments should not guarantee the liabilities of any private sector business are: Such guarantees distort competition. Those that benefit will outperform rivals, not because they are more efficient or better at serving customers, but because they have access to cheaper capital. If the government relieves companies of business risk, more risk will [...]

FSA’s bank stress tests just got more stressful

By Coastal Roy ⋅ 11 December, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

Stress tests are used by firms to try to gauge how their businesses would react to certain sudden changes in economies or markets Leading banks, building societies and insurance companies are being forced to embark on radical changes to the way they run their businesses under a new regime for “stress testing” announced by the [...]

Should the mandate of the Fed change?

By Coastal Roy ⋅ 9 December, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

Two sharply contrasting visions of the future of the Federal Reserve have arisen in Ben Bernanke’s confirmation hearings in the US Senate. The first is the Bernanke/Geithner model, advocated by the Fed chairman and his former colleague Tim Geithner, Treasury secretary, The Fed would: retain its supervision powers over the top banks and gain supervision [...]

E-learning interactive graphic: Central banks compared