Don’t cry for the bank regulators

Sir, Wolfgang Munchau in “Cross-border banks require a single regulator” (April 2) explains that this is now becoming a European Unions issue as a consequence of the cross-border mergers of some European banks. Munchau should not forget though that for many of us living in developing countries, where sometimes the majority of our local deposits are held in banks controlled by foreign interests, the question of who really is the final responsible regulator has always been present, especially since we know how relatively easy it would be for banks in times of crisis to decide who are left holding the bag. Could a foreign regulator be sued for not doing his job properly? As to the consolidation among the regulators themselves and that could imply some of them losing their jobs, we shed no tears for them, since they must have known they had it coming when the bank regulations coming out from Basel so much favour the consolidation between the banks.