The Basel Committee jammed banks’ gearboxes… not only in India

Amy Kazmin reporting on India quotes Rajeev Malik, founder of Singapore-based Macroshanti, in that “A well-oiled, well-functioning financial system is the gearbox of the economy”, “Financial system is ‘like a truck with a messed-up gearbox’” September 23.

The financial system’s gearbox got truly messed up when regulators decided that banks could leverage differently their capital based on perceived risk… more risk more capital, less risk less capital… as if what is perceived as risky is more dangerous to bank systems than what is perceived as safe.

And Kazmin writes: “The financial companies that had provided much of India’s credit growth in recent years are now struggling with access to funding themselves after the shocking collapse of AAA-rated infrastructure lender, IL&FS, last year.”

Could that have something to do with the fact that since 2004 Basel II regulations banks needed to hold only 1.6% in capital when human fallible credit rating agencies assigned an AAA to AA rating to a corporation?

And Kazmin writes: “With its own voracious appetite for funds to finance its fiscal deficit, New Delhi is now mopping up much of the country’s household savings through a clutch of small schemes such as post office savings that offer higher rates than commercial banks.”

Could that have something to do with the fact that since 1988 Basel I regulations, banks need to no capital at all against loans to the government of India… but 8% when lending to Indian entrepreneurs.

Sir, risk taking is the oxygen of any development so, with such a dysfunctional gearbox, how is India going to make it? None of the richer countries would ever have developed the same with Basel Committee’s bank regulations… and all their bank crises, those that always result from something safe turning risky, would have all been so much worse, as these failed exposures would have been held against especially little capital. 

Here is a document titled “Are the bank regulations coming from Basel good for development?” It was presented in October 2007 at the High-level Dialogue on Financing for Developing at the United Nations. It was also reproduced in 2008 in The Icfai University Journal of Banking Law. 

@PerKurowski

New Delhi might need some quality-of-air-weighted equity requirements for banks

Sir, you know I am convinced that the pillar of current bank regulations, namely credit-risk weighted equity requirements for banks is extremely stupid, as regulators clear for risks already cleared for by the banks. And so the consequences of that can only be too much credit at too lenient terms to what is perceived as safe, and too little credit at too harsh terms to what is perceived as risky.

If instead those equity requirements cleared for instance for the potential of job creation and or the sustainability of planet earth then we would also distort, but at least we would have injected some purpose to that distortion.

And so when I read Amy Kazmin´s “New Delhi Notebook: Politicians pass the polluted buck while air quality worsens” March 7, I immediately think of recommending the Indian authorities the following:

Set up an environmental rating agency, and allow banks to hold less equity against any loans that have a good environmental rating. That way the banks can leverage more that type of loans and get a higher risk-adjusted return on their equity for a good purpose. Let us never forget that what the bank really leverages is not only its own equity but also the implicit and explicit supports the taxpayers and society in general grants them; and so it is not outrageous to ask for that support to serve a better purpose than only a quite dangerous risk aversion.

@PerKurowski