October 28, 2014

Quite many of our modern day bankers have, unfortunately, never known a small or medium sized enterprise.

Sir, I refer to the analysis “Bank stress tests fail to tackle deflation spectre” October 28.

In it we read Jean-Pierre Mustier, head of corporate and investment bank at Unicredit saying: “I think the issue of small and medium-sized enterprises lending is one of demand and not so much of supply”.

And I have a feeling Mr. Mustier might be one of those modern bankers who have never ever known a small or medium sized enterprise.

And if Mr. Mustier does not understand the impact on the supply of credit to small and medium-sized enterprises, the fact that banks are required to hold so much more equity when lending to these than when lending to “absolutely safe” has, that might be because Mr. Mustier as a banker has only lent to “infallible sovereigns” or members of the AAAristocracy.