Breaking up big banks? There is a middle-way

A middle way to safeguard the utility component of banking and isolate the riskier parts of the business would be to require all investment banking and securities dealing to take place in separately capitalised and regulated subsidiaries. Cross-subsidies not only pose the risk of cross-contamination with risk they also make it difficult for management to run the business as the profitability of individual business lines is not always easy to assess.

New Credit Suisse compensation structure

It remains to be seen how the growing complexity of compensation schemes such as the one published by Credit Suisse will affect the ability of the sponsoring organizations to attract, motivate and retain talent. Given my experience, the annual discussion of expected and realised bonus allocations has already taken up a lot of nervous energy among the staff when things were much simpler. The new layers of complexity open the door to more arbitrary decisions and distracting political infighting. Most employees have zero influence on decisions taken by top management (often by the CEO alone) and cannot be expected to suffer from the impact of these decisions when they turn out to have been wrong (which may be a long time after the decision has been taken and - even worse - a long time after they were awarded their very conditional compensation).

Mayor Boris still does not get it!

One nearly has to feel sorry for Goldman Sachs - though I would hazard a guess that the people there would not give a fig for our sympathy. But when even politicians such as London's mayor Boris Johnson who do not really have a say in banking regulation start taking aim at banker's bonuses we have to take a stand. Fact number one two and three in the sorry saga of the credit crunch is simply the total failure of banking supervision. And Boris and his fellow-travellers in the political class are barking up the wrong tree. All the politically-inspired interventions in the banking crisis poured oil on the fire and if anything made matters worse (apart from being arbitrary and discriminatory in their treatment of the various banks involved). And even more regrettable is the failure of the 'International Community' to agree on improved and effective rules and regulations.