Some simple rules for banking reform - and no need for a PhD either!

One aspect of banking reform that has been completely neglected would be the requirement to match the maturities of assets and liabilities more closely. While 100 pct will never be practical there should be tight guidelines. Bands of maturities on both sides of the balance sheet should be closely matched to about 90 per cent. Large banks, and in particular trading firms, should not be able to roll a mountain of short term debt to finance highly speculative positions and hope for the best - or the next taxpayer-funded bailout. The huge interbank market is also ripe for more regulation. There simply is no need for a fragile house of cards of interbank positions on which to build a proper lending business. A small amount of interbank lending is always required to smooth positions but every bank should mostly rely on deposits from its own customers (and matched as to liquidity). These rules are simple to monitor, no PHD or even MBA is needed, just sound people with common sense and a health work ethic (in contrast to a bonus ethic)

Regulatory costs out of control

A quick look at numbers released by Brewin Dolphin, a wealth manager in the UK, confirms our fears that regulatory costs have exploded well out of control and that the supposed beneficiary, the ordinary investor and saver, has very little to show for it. At Brewin regulatory costs have now reached 6 percent of turnover, totalling around £15 million. When put in relation to pre-tax profits of £31.4 million or assets under management/advice of £23.2 billion one can see that bureaucracy is just another tax where most of the proceeds go towards paying the running costs of the self-serving bureaucracy (4000 paper-pushers by now and rising rapidly).

FSA vetting procedures - deepening bureaucratic morass

An interesting side-effect of the FSA's vetting procedures for senior banking executives is highlighted in the Financial Times: the widely-applauded push for more female board members may be hindered as the vetting procedures tend to favor experienced males, especially those with an accounting or audit background. As it is difficult to find many senior women with that kind of background companies may struggle to fill vacancies with women candidates. In addition, candidates may be deterred from putting themselves forward and submit themselves to the FSA vetting regime. We are not really of the opinion that favoring women during a search is the right way to go - just the other day an old colleague from Goldman Sachs mentioned to me that any woman aspiring for a more senior role there must make a hard choice between domestic and professional life with any one going to pursue her career in earnest likely to have the backing of a house husband. But on a wider front one has to ask why would any experienced professional want to undergo the humiliation of being 'vetted' by paper-pushers at the FSA that have achieved less and are less capable? Any person worth his salt in Moscow, Tokyo, Hong Kong or New York is well advised to stay where he/she is and say 'thanks but no thanks' to any job offer here in London. And that is without even mentioning the weather, taxes or public transport.

No improvement in pay practices at banks - study

An study commissioned by the Council of Institutional Investors comes to the conclusion that changes to pay practices at major banks in the USA have lead to a deterioration rather than the intended improvement in incentives.

Lehman bankruptcy administration costs reach $1 billion mark

Regulators worldwide can be congratulated for contributing so generously to the fortunes of lawyers, accountants and assorted advisers who reap this windfall at the expense of savers and investors. A special thank you must be reserved for Hank Paulson was instrumental in orchestrating this signature disaster during the Credit Crunch.

Kafka alive and well in US Government

The absurd consequences of the obsession with fighting symptoms rather than causes and increasing the reach of government and civil servants at all costs is demonstrated by news (Wall Street Journal, 20 Nov 2010) that major US banks are intimidated enough to refuse to conduct business with a large number of foreign embassies in the USA. In countries such as the UK opening a bank account is a major burden for consumers and achieves no demonstrable benefit in terms of fighting crime or terrorism. The costs of complying with regulations that become more complicated by the day is immense, not only in direct costs related to the governmental enforcement agencies but also in terms of additional staffing in financial service firms.

Troubled Borrowers should not be treated too leniently

One of my favourite City Commentators, Anthony Hilton, writes in his Evening Standard column that it would be in EMI's interest that Terra Firma and Citigroup 'talk' to resolve their dispute. But all too often these negotiations are a win-win situation for the over-leveraged borrowers. Any concession by the lender is in effect a gift as the really logical situation would be a write-off of the equity and the transfer of ownership to the lenders. This would also be beneficial from a societal point of view as it would redistribute wealth in a more equitable way, preventing capitalism from becoming a one-way bet for the borrowers. 

From a business point of view, banks must look after their profits, this benefits not only their shareholders but also taxpayers as any capital cushion they build up will also reduce the amount of any future bailout that may be required.

Staff Performance Reviews under Fire

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal takes aim at staff performance reviews. Temple Associates has long argued that the present performance review system is a ritual and platform for political power plays - especially in large, bureaucratic organisations. In addition, the secretive and arbitrary way that bonuses are awarded does little to alleviate this problem. While well-intentioned, making awards too dependent on subjective opinions (even worse on a 360 degree basis) would often turn out to be ludicrously discriminative if it would be brought out into the open - or even subjected to legal test. While maligned by regulators making performance-based pay dependent on numbers would be a more objective and less controversial way of establishing fairness. In addition, company-wide bonus schemes on an equal percentage basis could be administered for all employees. This would allow to incentivise those employees who work in areas where performance cannot be assessed based on numbers alone.

Pitfalls of Acquisitions

The 2005 takeover of Eurohypo by Commerzbank is just another example in a long list of acquisitions that led to disastrous consequences for the acquiring party. While not many people could have predicted the Credit Crunch at that time it confirms the conclusion of many studies that say that at least half of all acquisitions are not successful. Utmost due diligence is therefore the order of the day when undertaking M+A projects. Unfortunately, too many deals are driven by egos - especially those of CEO's who brush aside all concerns - quite often even those voiced by their internal strategy and planning departments.

Bankers need to find bonus accord?

That seems to be the opinion of Mark Kleinman (FT). But quite apart from the legal aspect of companies coming together on a sensitive subject I would be sceptical about the success chances for any such accord. As long as economic pressures lead to competition for the services of quality professionals there will be upward pressure on the compensation packages for those most in demand. Salaries (and employment numbers) among the run-of-the-mill employees may well be under downward pressure at the same time but top performers should remain well bid for. This trend is exacerbated by the fact that alternative investment managers in the hedge fund and private equity sectors are continuing to benefit from an extremely lax regulatory environment that gives them a leg-up when competing for staff with banks, traditional fund managers as well as industry and commerce in general.