The curious case of the not curious journalists

Even though absolutely all major bank crisis have resulted from excessive exposures to what was ex ante perceived as absolutely safe, and none from excessive exposures to what was ex ante perceived as risky, current capital requirements for banks are much higher for what is perceived as risky than for what is perceived as safe. And that sounds quite curious indeed.

And one could have thought that financial journalists, like those at the Financial Times, would find that sufficiently curious so as to at least ask a bank regulator for a satisfactorily understandable explanation.

But no, they do not. Is not that quite curious too?

How dumb can we allow our bank regulators to be?

The Financial Stability Board in its meeting on June 24, 2013 in Basel declared:

“Despite important progress in strengthening the resilience of the global financial system, some parts of the system remain in a state of incomplete repair. Some jurisdictions need to continue to improve the capitalisation of their banking systems.”

But, of course, not a word that it was them, and their chums at the Basel Committee who, with that mother of all bad inventions, namely the capital requirements for banks based on perceived risk, allowed the banks to explode their balance sheets on what was perceived as “absolutely safe” holding almost no capital; and completely ignoring the fact that all major bank crisis, no exclusions, have detonated because of excessive exposures to what was perceived as “absolutely safe”, but turned out not to be.

1.6 percent in capital, a 62.5 to 1 leverage when lending to Greece but 8 percent capital, five times less, a 12.5 to 1 leverage when lending to a German unrated entrepreneur. How dumb is one allowed to be?

These regulators should all be sent home… disgraced... and paraded with a dunce cap, a cone of shame, on their heads.

PS. This was written before I knew that EU authorities had assigned all eurozone sovereigns, including Greece, a 0% risk weight, which meant allowing infinite leverage.

PS. My letter to the Financial Stability Board

Mario Draghi, you should not be the president of the European Central Bank.

Mr. Draghi, you are there fundamentally covering up, with other people´s money, your own mistakes, as one of the bank regulators who with so much hubris thought they could be the risk managers of the world; and thereto concocted those so stupid capital requirements for banks which are immensely lower for exposures to what is perceived as absolutely safe than for exposures to what is perceived as risky. 

That effectively castrated the banks which in Europe are of such extreme importance for allocating economic resources efficiently; and that effectively created the current crisis by pushing banks into excessive exposures to what you and your colleagues, trusting so naively the credit ratings, considered to be absolutely safe. 

Frankly, someone who has been able to authorize banks to invest in securities with an AAA to AA rating, or lend to Greece, holding only 1.6 per cent in capital, and thereby authorizing the banks to leverage their capital 62.5 to 1 for that kind of exposures to “The Infallible”, does not seem to have the qualifications needed to be the president of the ECB. 

Frankly, someone who at the same time required banks to hold 8 per cent in capital when lending to “The Risky”, and does not understand what that implies in terms of discriminating against those actors who though perceived as risky, play such a fundamental role on the margins of the real economy, like our small businesses and entrepreneurs, does not seem to have the qualifications needed to be the president of the ECB. 

Wherever and whenever, I dare you to in public answer some very simple questions that I have for years now repeated over and over again. Just in case you want to plead ignorance on it, here you can find some of the material that would be in the exam. Be my guest. 

And just for your information I am not someone crazy or unstable. I am a professional with a long and successful experience, but at the same time very anxious about the Western World in which my grandchildren will have to live in… and here but a sample of what I warned you all about, but that the banks regulators' little mutual admiration club preferred to ignore.

And just for your information I am taking this for me quite uncomfortable route, only after in vain having tried to capture your attention so as to help you correct your mistakes. You probably hoped that by just ignoring me, the problems would go away. Sorry, not to happen. 

Why me, you might ask. Because you Mr. Draghi, having been the chairman of the Financial Stability Board for so many years, best represents the promotion of the failed; since many other of your colleagues have only been given a chance to have a go at it again with Basel III, something which of course is also sheer lunacy. But, if there is someone else more deserving of my criticism, please advice, I have no problems. 

Am I not aware of how delicate the situation of Europe is so as to make this type of public letter? Yes, of course I am, but I am also absolutely convinced that if Europe does not rid itself of this loony discrimination against “The Risky”, those who helped it become what it is, then the Europe we love will sadly be gone forever. And you are not authorized to do that!

God make us daring!

Per Kurowski

Our current bank regulators are dangerous fools.

Bank regulators foolishly allow banks to hold much less capital against assets which are perceived as “safe” than when holding assets perceived as “risky”. 

That means that bank regulators foolishly allow banks to leverage their capital many times more when holding assets which are perceived as “safe” than when holding assets perceived as “risky”. 

And that means that bank regulators foolishly allow banks to earn a much higher expected risk-adjusted return on equity when holding assets perceived as “safe” than when holding assets perceived as “risky”. 

And I say “foolishly” because with that bank regulators introduce a distortion that makes it absolutely impossible for banks to perform their vital social function of allocating resources efficiently. 

And I say “foolishly” because that guarantees that when something ex-ante perceived as safe, ex post turns out to be risky, bank exposures to it will be huge, and the bank capital to cover for it totally insufficient. 

And I hold our current bank regulators to be dangerous fools, because they don´t even understand the harm their capital requirements based on perceived risk of Basel II does to our banking system and that it caused the current crisis; and because they now want to dig us even deeper down into the hole with Basel III adding liquidity requirements which are also based on perceived risk. 

A bank is there to take intelligent risks on behalf of the risk-adverse society, and not to be treated as just another widow or orphan by some dumb overanxious nannies.

A perfect depiction of our bank regulators… looking out in the same direction of bankers for what is perceived as risky, forgetting that in banking, as in so much other, what is really risky is what is considered absolutely safe. (Thanks "Learning from dogs" for the heads up for the photo)

The greatest non transparent interest rate manipulation ever

Regulators, the Basel Committee, the Financial Stability Board, with their capital requirements for banks which are much lower for bank holding assets that are perceived as absolutely safe than for those is perceived as risky, effectively manipulated the relative risk-adjusted return on bank equity to be much higher for what is officially perceived as absolutely safe, than for what is perceived as risky. 

That, the greatest non transparent interest rate manipulation ever, pushed the banks into holding excessive exposures to some of “The infallible” which turned out to be fallible, while holding minuscule bank capital, was the prime cause for the crisis. 

That, the greatest non transparent interest rate manipulation ever, reduces the incentives for the banks to lend to “The Risky”, like the small businesses and entrepreneurs, those actors who on the margin are the most important for the real economy, and is thereby hindering any economic recovery. 

Did the regulators do that on purpose or because they are dumb? I sincerely hope for theirs and ours sake it is the second.

“An nescis, mi fili, quantilla prudentia mundus regatur?” Axel Oxenstierna, 1583 – 1654

Mamma Mia! The Basel I, II and III bank regulations are 180° wrong!

What is perceived as “risky” is never really risky in banking because by means of charging higher risk premiums (interest rates) allowing for smaller exposures and imposing stricter terms, the damages that result when “risky” turns out to be risky are usually small and very containable. 

Not so when what is perceived as “absolutely not risky” turns out to be very risky. In that case total mayhem results, and indeed all bank crises ever have resulted precisely from that. 

In this respect a bank regulator, if he knew what he was doing, could with some logic contemplate the idea of higher capital requirements for banks for assets perceived as “not risky” and somewhat lower for assets perceived as “risky”. 

But what a regulator could absolutely not do, if he knew what he was doing, was what they did in  Basel I, Basel II and are doing in Basel III, which is allowing for much lower capital requirements for assets perceived as “absolutely not risky”. In other words the regulators are 180° wrong. In other words they are making sure that the bank crises, whenever these occur, as a result of something ex ante considered to be “absolutely safe” turning out to be risky ex post, will be bigger than ever. 

Can this be true? Yes! Just try to ask a bank regulator the following question and you will see his eyes go foggy. “Dear Mr. Bank Regulator, can you explain to me what risks the current capital requirements are to cover for, and which have not previously been covered for in the interest rates, in the amounts of exposure and in the terms of the contract?” 

How could it be the regulators got it so wrong? It is a long story but the short version of it is that this sort of thing happens when you allow experts to toy around in the lab in a mutual admiration club without any adult supervision and not accountable to anyone. 

But it is even worse. Not only are Basel I, Basel II and III regulations totally useless when it comes to stopping major crisis, they even stimulate those disasters to happen. By allowing banks to earn higher returns on equity when lending to “The Infallible” than when lending to “The Risky”, Basel II and III introduce distortions which makes it impossible for the banks to allocate economic resources with any degree of efficiency. 

But they say that Basel III is better? Yes much better, but only if you completely ignore what was wrong with Basel II. In reality Basel III, now also imposing liquidity requirements based on perceived risks; and knighting the too-big-to-fail-banks as Globally-Systemic-Important-Financial Institutions (which de facto classifies the rest as unimportant) will just make all much worse. 

Tax-payers, caveat emptor, our banks are regulated by experts gone crazy and berserk, and who think that if they just ignore my arguments their mistake will never have existed!

What are historians going to say about the Basel Committee's capital requirements for banks based on perceived risk?

I am sure historians will be scratching their heads trying to figure out how the bank regulators of the Basel Committee for Banking Supervision, and of the Financial Stability Board, could have been so dumb so as to base their capital requirements for banks on perceived risks already cleared for by markets and banks through interest rates, amounts exposed and other contractual terms. 

And with it they doomed our banking system to overdose on perceived risks and create obese exposures to "The Infallible" and anorexic exposures to "The Risky". 

In other words the regulators castrated the banks of the Western World and made these sing in falsetto.

Most probably the historians will be explaining it in terms of the incestuous group think which can result when allowing “experts” to debate such matters in a mutual admiration club subject to absolutely no accountability at all.

Damn you dumb bank regulators!

Do you really think we can move forward discriminating in favor of “The Infallible” and against "The Risky"?

The kinder face of economic reality already favors the access to bank credit of “The Infallible”… lower interest rates, bigger loans and easier terms. 

And the harsher face of economic reality already disfavors the access to bank credit of “The Risky”…higher interest rates, smaller loans and stricter terms. 

But, when regulators allow banks to hold much less capital when lending to “The Infallible" than when lending to “The Risky”, then the banks will be able to earn a much higher risk-adjusted return on their equity lending to The Infallible than when lending to “The Risky”.

And so then “The Infallible” will be charged even lower interest rates, get even larger loans and on even easier terms, while “The Risky”, like our not-so-good rated or unrated small business and entrepreneurs, will be charged even higher interest rates, get even smaller loans and have to accept even stricter terms. 

And so let me ask you, do you really think this regulatory discrimination in favor of The Infallible and against The Risky makes an economic sense that might compensate for its injustice? I don’t, quite the opposite! 

It is outright foolish from an economic perspective, as it impedes banks to allocate our economic resources efficiently. And, to top it up, it brings more instability to the banking system because the bank exposures to what is ex-ante perceived as part of “The Infallible”, which are the only exposures that can set of a systemic crisis if ex-post these turn out to belong to “The Risky”, will not only be much higher but the banks will also be receiving the blows holding much less capital.

In truth bank regulators castrated our banks, and so these are all singing in falsetto now… and even badly so.

Frankly, between you and me, if I really thought the regulators had concocted these dumb regulations which are destroying our economies and causing so much suffering, knowingly and on purpose, I would consider that to be an act of high treason, and suggest they be shot, on the spot.

Financial Stability Forum, please, show some courage to tell it as it is.

“Addressing procyclicality in the financial system is an essential component of strengthening the macroprudential orientation of regulatory and supervisory frameworks.” [and so there is a need to] “mitigate mechanisms that amplify procyclicality in both good and bad times”. That is part of what the Financial Stability Forum recommends in their report of 2 April 2009.

Indeed it sounds a so very impressive and technically solid conclusion? Yet it completely ignores that the prime reason why we find ourselves in the current predicament has much less to do with prociclicality in good times or bad times and much more with some good old fashioned plain vanilla type plain bad investment judgments. What had the world to do, whether in good or bad times, investing in securities collateralized by awfully bad awarded mortgages to the subprime sector in the USA? Would we be so deep in this mess had not the credit rating agencies awarded AAA to such securities? Of course not!

It is a shame that the Financial Stability Forum does not have in it to openly accept the fact that the whole risk based minimum capital requirements for banks idea imposed by Basel is fundamentally flawed, in so many ways. They only accept it in a veiled way when they recommend a “supplementary non-risk based measure to contain bank leverage”.

The lack of forthrightness serves no purpose and can only supply further confusion. Let me here just spell out two of the arguments I have been making.

The current minimum capital requirements are based on requiring less capital for investments that are perceived as being of lower risk while in fact, in a cumulative way, what most signifies a truly systemic risk for the world, lies exclusively in the realms of the investments that are perceived and sold as being of a low risk. In other words systemically the world at large does never enter B- land it goes like a herd to where it is told the AAAs live. The problem was not so much that the world went to play at the casino, the real problem was that the tables were rigged, one way or another.

In the current minimum capital requirements dictated by Basel a loan by a bank to a corporation rated AAA by a human fallible credit rating agencies requires only $1.60 for each $100 lent, equivalent to a 62.5 to 1 leverage and this obviously has much more to do with regulators losing their marbles than with times being good or bad.

This financial and economic crisis will cause more misery in the world than most if not perhaps all wars. Do you really not think the world merits the truth and nothing but the truth?

The Financial Stability Forum has read and learned from Il Gattopardo!

In the best traditions of what Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s says in Il Gattopardo about that "Everything must change in order to remain the same" the Financial Stability Forum in their Report on Enhancing Markets and Institutional Resilience, dated October 10, announces “Changes in the role and uses of credit ratings”, only to proceed digging us even deeper in the hole we are in.

FSF spells out these changes to be:

1. On the quality of the rating process… presumably meaning the CRAs will be better in the future… allowing the markets to trust the credit rating agencies even more.

2. Differentiated ratings and expanded information on structured products… presumably meaning that the CRAs will in the future provide the markets with more precise and tailor made information… allowing the markets to trust the credit agencies even more.

3. An enhanced assessment of underlying data quality… presumably meaning that in the future the CRAs will make sure they work with more relevant data… allowing the markets to trust the credit agencies even more.

4. Telling investors to address their over-reliance on ratings…meaning that investors associations should consider developing standards of due diligence for CRAs… allowing the markets to trust the credit agencies even more… while preparing the terrain for an “I told you to do it!”

5. And finally that the authorities will review their use of ratings in the regulatory and supervisory framework to address the excessive reliance on credit ratings… by launching the stocktaking of the uses of ratings in legislation, regulations and supervisory guidance by its member authorities in the banking, securities and insurance sectors… as if they already should not know that.

From what we read the FSF says, and the so little said about the credit rating agencies during the IMF/World Bank meetings, it would seem that the only ones who really had their institutional resilience strengthen these last weeks were the credit rating agencies… Why? How come?

Friends,

I do not know of anyone who knows anyone who knows anyone that has lost a single dollar giving a subprime mortgage on too generous or outright stupid terms to anyone who classifies as belonging to a subprime sector. Neither do you, I bet.

But I do know of many persons or institutions that have lost fortunes investing in securities collateralized with mortgages just because these securities were rated AAA by one two or even three of the only three credit rating agencies that are to be used by all of us, including by the financial regulators. And so do you, I bet.

Therefore, without any doubt, this crisis is a direct result of the credit rating agencies issuing the wrong ratings, and since these agencies were so much followed because they were excessively empowered by the financial regulators, we should have even less doubts about whom we really should blame.

The Axis of the credit rating agencies and the financial regulators has already cost the world trillions of dollars.

My questions to the World Bank/IMF - Spring Meetings 2008

Risk is the oxygen of development!

It is absurd to believe that the US and other countries would have reached development without bank failures. When the Basel Committee imposes on the banks minimum capital requirements based solely on default risks, this signifies putting a tax on risk-taking, something which in itself carries serious risks. The real risk is not banks defaulting; the real risk is banks not helping the society in its growth and development. Not having a hangover (bank-crisis) might just be the result of not going to the party!

We need to stop focusing solely on the hangovers and begin measuring the results of the whole cycle, party and hangover, boom and bust! The South Korean boom that went bust in 1997-1998 seems to have been much more productive for South Korea than what the current boom-bust cycle seems to have been for the United States.

All over the world there is more than sufficient evidence that taxing risks has only stimulated the financing of anything that can be construed as risk free, like public sector and securitized consumer financing; and penalized the finance of more risky ventures like decent job creation. Is it time for capital requirements based on units of default risk per decent job created?

When is the World Bank as a development bank to speak up on this issue on which they have been silent in the name of “harmonization” with the IMF?

When are we to stop digging in the hole we’re in?

The detonator of our current financial turmoil were the badly awarded mortgages to the subprime sector and that morphed into prime rated securities with the help of the credit rating agencies appointed as risk surveyors for the world by the bank regulators.

If we survive this one and since it is “human to err” we know that if we keep empowering the credit rating agencies to direct the financial flows in the world, it is certain that at some time in the future we will follow them over even more dangerous precipices.

Note: I have just read the Financial Stability Forum brotherhood’s report on Enhancing Market and Institutional Resilience and while including some very common sense recommendations with respect to better liquidity management and “reliable operational infrastructure”; and some spirited words about more supervision and oversight (the blind leading the blind); with respect to the concerns expressed above, bottom line is that they recommend we should deepen the taxes on risks and make certain that the credit rating agencies behave better and get to be more knowledgeable… so that we are more willing to follow them where we, sooner or later, do not and should not want to go.

Do micro-credit institutions make too much use of “predatory ratings”?

Any group of debtors that is charged a higher interest rate because it is considered a higher credit risk is composed by those spending their money servicing a debt that they will finally default on, and those who should have in fact deserved a lower interest rate. Are there any real winners among them?

Who is out there talking about that the extensive use of ratings signifies something like a regressive tax for the poor? Who is out there informing the poorly rated about how very dearly they are paying for their loans? Who is out there analyzing the murdering impact that credit ratings have in chipping away at the minimum levels of solidarity that any society needs to keeps itself a society?

If there is a minimum of things that needs to be done in the world of micro credits that is to focus more on transparent system of incentives that: 1. Stimulates and rewards good group behavior and returns to the compliant borrowers some of the “extraordinary” margins earned. 2. Spreads out the costs of those who cannot make it over a much wider group of debtors.

And, by the way, this applies just the same to the financing of mortgages to the subprime sector.

Are the bank regulations coming from Basle good for development?

The document that I presented at the High-level Dialogue on Financing for Developing at the United Nations, New York, October 2007, as a member of New Rules for Global Finance.

ARE THE BASEL BANK REGULATIONS GOOD FOR DEVELOPMENT?

1. It is very sad when a developed nation decides making risk-adverseness the primary goal of their banking system and places itself voluntarily on a downward slope, since risk taking is an integral part of its economic vitality, but it is a real tragedy when developing countries copycats that and falls into the trap of calling it quits.

2. In his book “Money: Whence it came, where it went” (1975), John Kenneth Galbraith speculates on the fact that one of the basic fundamentals of the accelerated growth experienced in the western and south-western parts of the United States during the past century was the existence of an aggressive banking sector working in a relatively unregulated environment. Banks opened and closed doors and bankruptcies were frequent, but as a consequence of agile and flexible credit policies, even the banks that failed left a wake of development in their passing.

3. Few things can be so relevant to the financing of development as the regulations that are being applied to commercial banks. Unfortunately, as the world has been quite infatuated with the banking regulations emanating from Basel ; as they seemingly kept the bank crisis at bay so efficiently –although some of us believe they seemed more destined to stop the small tremors than to help to avoid the big quakes, or what in recent Alan Greenspan terminology would amount to a lack of "benevolent turbulence"– there has been no room to question the basic principles of the regulations, much less so from the perspective of developing countries that "needed" to be "saved" from their recurring bank crises.

4. As a former Executive Director at the World Bank (2002-2004) who tried to voice this issue frequently, among others at an ECOSOC-Bretton Woods-WTO meeting at the UN in April 2004, I can testify to the difficulties.

5. Some specific problems, such as the possible reinforcement of the pro-cyclicality of bank lending, and some specifics of the Basel II reforms such as its high costs, which could give the larger banks a comparative advantage, have been recorded as discussed, though resulting in nothing special of practical consequence. We should also comment that it is a bit surrealistic to debate the Basel II reforms without ever having entered into and much less exhausted the discussions on the fundamental principles imbedded in Basel I, which clearly contain the genesis of a series of factors that could affect the financing of development.

6. The recent financial turmoil that has cast some serious shadows on some of the Basel operational methods, for instance the high reliance on credit rating agencies, can perhaps now provide us with the opportunity to ask and debate "Are the bank regulations coming out from Basel truly compatible with the best interests of developing countries?" It is in this vein that we would like to start by raising the following issues:

Current regulatory arbitrage favors risk adverseness

7. The bank regulations that come out from Basel are almost exclusively against-risks-at-any-cost driven and so they completely ignore the other two major functions of banking systems, namely to help generate growth and to distribute opportunities.[1] The fact that in a developing society there are some risks more worthy to take than others is completely ignored in the minimum capital requirements ordained by Basel. The argument that "a stable banking system is critical to the long-term growth of an economy" is repeated like a mantra with no consideration of the stage of development and circle of growth in which a country finds itself.

8. Credits deemed to have a low default or collection risk will intrinsically always have the advantage of being better perceived and therefore being charged lower interest rates, precisely because they are lower risk. But, the minimum capital requirements of the Basel regulations, by additionally rewarding "low risk" with the cost saving benefits resulting from lower capital requirements, are unduly leveraging the attractiveness of "low risk" when compared to "higher risk" financing.

9. Allow us to illustrate this central argument in a very simplified way. Under the current Basel I Standardized Approach, a low risk corporate loan (rated AAA to AA-) requires a bank to hold only 20% of the basic 8% capital requirement, meaning 1.6 in units of capital, while a much riskier loan (rated below BB-) requires it to hold 150% of the basic 8%, meaning 12 units of capital. If the current cost of capital for the bank is 15%, then the bank's carrying cost for the low risk credit is 0.24% (8%*20%*15%) while the bank's carrying cost for the high risk credit is 1.80% (8%.150%*15%), thereby producing an additional cost of 1.56% that must be added on to the normal spread that the market already requires from a high risk compared to a low risk loan in a free market.

10. The extra Basel spread on risk makes it more difficult for higher risk borrowing needs to have access to credit from the commercial banks. In a developed country this might not be so serious because there are other alternative sources, but in a developing economy this is fatal, as the commercial banks frequently represent the only formal and supervised source of finance.

11. And of course the Basel effect does not limit itself to the extra carrying cost. From the perspective of the balance sheet we see that each unit of bank capital can sustain 62.5 units of low risk lending but only 8.3 units of high risk lending, and since bank capital itself is more scarce in a developing country, this also induces channeling of local savings increasingly towards the low risk side of the economy.

12. In Basel II, while the "Internal Ratings-Based Approach" provides a much more refined instrument for assessing risks it creates even more bias against risk, much the same as a health insurance scheme is able to offer more differentiated rates the more they know or think they know about the expected health prospects of their clients. We should not ignore that the finance of development requires the current generation to be willing to share in the risks of the future so as to help the society and coming generations to progress. In this respect the Basel risk adverseness could be described as a baby-boomer generation's invention to assure that their savings are there when they need them, with little consideration to what might come after.

13. By adding on a new layer of sophistication and digging deeper in the hole created by Basel I, Basel II will ironically increase the possibilities of new systemic risks and make the fight against the risks targeted by the Basel Committee even more difficult. This particular problem lies outside the context of this paper but for those interested we refer to the Statement number 160 of the Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee, March 2000,[2] where they propose instead the more logical route of harnessing more market discipline by using subordinated debt to make capital requirements more risk sensitive.

14. We are by no means implying that the risks in lending should be taken lightly, but since development normally does not make a living in the land of low risks, much the contrary, this regulatory arbitrage of overly benefiting risk adverseness, and adding on costs, is very costly for development. In short, Basel provides economic signals for maintaining the status quo rather than fostering development.

15. In this respect, and since the current Basel II proposals do contain much that could stimulate the banks to better quantify and manage risk, an alternative that could perhaps provide some of the benefits with less regulatory-ordered bias would be to require a flat percentage of assets as the capital requirement for the banks but forcing them to report to the market a Basel-calculated minimum capital, thereby allowing the market participants, investors or depositors, to price in their views on the differences between these two figures. Going this route would also diminish the quite dangerous possibility that the markets begin to believe that the Basel minimum capital requirements constitute a perfect risk equalization machine among banks with totally different risk structures.

16. As much of the risk management used by Basel is based on the analysis of old data, so as to establish loss probabilities, we also need to acknowledge the fact that a desired future does not stand on past statistical data, much less in the case of developing countries where that past statistical data refers precisely to what should be avoided in the future, and bears little relevance to what needs to be done.

17. But again we wish to make absolutely clear that this is NOT a proposal to abolish the Basel minimum capital requirements outright, but rather to study its other social costs in order to contain these or develop alternative methods that better balance the different societal objectives for the banks.

Current regulatory arbitrage leads to risk hiding

18. An excessive anti-risk bias will naturally stimulate risk hiding. Let us not forget that the need for assets to be qualified as more or less risky is exactly the reason why the credit rating agencies were so much empowered that now we also have the credit rating agencies bias risk, which already helped to create the sub-prime mortgages debacle.

19. One of the dangers for a developing country, where regulatory weaknesses might be more easily exploitable, is that the banks deviate all assets that in their opinion carry a lower capital requirement than what the regulator-credit rating agencies order into other formal or informal places of the market, while loading up their balance sheet with assets for which the risk/capital allocation seems a bargain; giving new meaning to the Thomas Gresham's principle that states that "bad money drives out good money.”

20. The mentioned risks are clearly not limited to developing countries and we can find a discussion of it in the context of developed countries in a speech of Alan Greenspan on "The Role of Capital in Optimal Banking Supervision and Regulation"[3] in 1998.

Excessive empowerment of new participants

21. Credit rating agencies. The Basel I Standardized Approach regulations led to the credit-rating agencies substituting for some of the traditional in-house credit analyst departments in local banks which, for better or for worse, had allowed credit analysis to be more colored by local factors. This has affected the whole credit environment, and the recent drive towards "development banks" and the establishing of the micro credit institutions can be seen in great part as efforts to satisfy needs created by the Basel inspired bank regulations.

22. It is indeed very difficult for developing countries to understand how authorities that have frequently preached to them the value of the invisible hand of millions of market agents can then go out and delegate so much regulatory power to a limited number of human and very fallible credit-rating agencies, especially as this must surely be setting us up for very serious new systemic errors.

23. Powers to the Supervisors. The Basel II "Internal Ratings-Based Approach" returns much of the credit analysis to the banks themselves, where it belongs, but in doing so it generates a series of new hands-on activities for bank supervisors who will need to consent, concur, approve and what have you, and which can only create new sources of distortions. In this respect suffice it to read the book by James R. Barth, Gerard Caprio, Jr. and Ross Levine, "Rethinking Bank Regulations: Till Angels Govern" [4] to reflect on the possible consequences.

We need much more research

24. When looking at how consumer credit is growing fast in so many developing countries, mainly because it can be more easily packaged (or camouflaged) as a low risk operation while traditional entrepreneurial credits barely skimp along, it would be natural to ask whether this could not be the direct result of the Basel regulations.

25. Could Basel be hindering development finance? What are the consequences of regulatory arbitrated risk adverseness? Is Basel introducing a bias in favor of public sector finance? Could the paradox of the increasing net outward financial flows from developing to developed countries be in any way related to these regulations?

26. These are all vital questions but there seems to be no ongoing research to try to understand how global financial flows have been affected by the Basel regulations and by the use of the credit rating agencies. The topic seems almost taboo, but given the importance of banking regulations for the financing of development, we would urge giving more priority to the research of these issues.

Who is the lender of last resort?

27. One concern, much aggravated by the new Basel II regulations, is that the world might have been irrevocably placed on a route that leads it to end up with just a couple of big international banks. In such a case, if one of these banks that have captured a very large share of local deposits in a developing country runs into problems, who is the real lender of last resort? Is the European Central Bank, for instance, willing to furnish Latin American countries with at least a letter of intent to provide support if a European-owned bank runs into problems while working in Latin America? Clearly there is an urgent need for close international collaboration on this matter.

28. The issue of a possible tendency to have fewer banks, which would seem to imply that damages caused by an individual bank default could grow as a result of upping the ante, also raises the question of why this is not considered by Basel. If the Basel risk assessment methodology favors a diversification in the portfolio of a particular bank, then shouldn’t society, and the lender of last resort, also apply this criteria to their own portfolio of banks? Is there not a need for an additional capital requirement based on the individual bank's market share?

What can be done?
29. There are no easy answers, but to discuss these problems openly and candidly is as good a start as any, and so therefore these questions and issues need to be brought to the forefront of the discussions, like for example:

30. Can and should the minimum capital requirements be supplemented or complemented in such a way as to neutralize the risk adverseness of current regulation by, for instance, providing an adjustment for credits destined to create jobs? If the bank regulators of the world insist on imposing the criteria of the credit rating agencies, should we development agents request the presence of our development rating agencies and distribution of opportunities rating agencies?

31. Instead of using the differences in the perceived risks of the credits to determine the formal capital requirements an alternative is to apply an equal percentage to all the assets of the bank but then having the banks to report something similar to a Basle risk valuation as an additional transparent information reference. Although this approach looks to incorporate a more holistic market view than the strictly risk related “subordinated debt route suggested by the Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee, there is nothing that stops it from being complementary to the former.

32. Some could argue that to rely on the markets is impossible in developing countries where markets are deemed to be non-existent or weak but the other side of that coin is that that constitutes precisely the reason for having to rely on whatever little market there is.

Who is debating?
33. Put together the chefs from many different countries and you might get a quite varied menu, but gather the brain-surgeons and there is not going to be a great deal of diversity in their opinions. One of the main problems in discussing the Basel issue, and more so of being able to introduce any changes, is the current lock-hold that central bankers and bank supervisors have on the debate. Sometimes it is argued that if developing countries are better represented in Basel, they will be better able to voice their development concerns, but if this representation of diversity is only to happen by convening experts from all around the world that profess the same principles and have the same mindset, then no matter where they come from, this will be a dead-end street.

34. The numerous comments made by Basel officials about the importance of not rushing the implementation of Basel II, would seem to indicate that experts from developing countries feel the pressure to be recognized as being just as up-to-date and risk-adverse as their peers in developed countries. This syndrome, that costs many developing countries dearly in many of their WTO negotiations, needs to be controlled by assuring the presence of professionals that have other interests beside bank regulations.

35. The World Bank, as a development institution, should have played a much more counterbalancing role in this debate, but unfortunately it has been often silenced in the name of the need to "harmonize" with the IMF. Likewise, the Financial Stability Forum is also, by its sheer composition and mission, too closely related to the Basel bank regulations to provide for an independent perspective, much less represent the special needs of developing countries. Therefore the introduction of independent development voices in the debate is absolutely crucial, and perhaps this could be arranged through a G77 or a G24 effort.

36. As evidence for the lack of inclusion of other points of view different from risk avoidance, let us just refer to the Policy Conclusion in the Report of the Secretary General on the International Financial System and Development dated July 6, 2007, where "surveillance" appears seven times and except for one reference to the development of the financial sector there is not a single word about development itself.

37. For the record, let us state that although we have made the above comments from the perspective of "finance for development," most of the criticism put forward is just as applicable to developed countries. In this respect it is interesting to note that in the United States there has been some serious questioning of whether those regulations are not too uniform as to be applicable to all of their banks.

38. To conclude, we wish to insist that no society can survive by simply maximizing risk avoidance; future generations will pay dearly for this current run to safety. So therefore, more than placing our trust in the banks’ financial standing, we need to trust in what the banks do. Let us make certain our bank regulations help us to do just that.

[1] http://www.bis.org/publ/bcbs107.htm

[2] http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.16542/pub_detail.asp

[3] Federal Reserve Bank of New York Economic Policy Review of October 1998.

[4] Cambridge University Press, 2006

This document was also reproduced in The Icfai University Journal of Banking Law Vol. VI No.4 October 2008