Bank ghostbusters?

Published in FT September 12, 2006

Sir, David Skeel ("The ghost of a crisis in equity funds hides real benefit", September 5), tells us the reason equity funds and hedge funds are "the ghosts of the market's future" is that they "may increasingly assume many of the functions traditionally handled by banks" and "use a wide array of financial instruments now available to hedge the kind of risks traditionally borne by the banks". If he is right then that would make them more like the ghosts of banks past and also turn the banking regulators in Basle into some slightly foolish-looking ghostbusters.