Should not all banking be sustainable?
Sir Lawrence Summers, June 2, gives his “Six principles for a new regulatory order” for the financial system and the next day you publish a full section on “Sustainable Banking” and there is absolutely no connect between them. Should not the ordinary financial sector and its commercial banks also be sustainable?
Ever since the Basel Accord the only thing in the agenda of bank regulators has been to avoid bank defaults and that cannot simply be all the purpose there is to banking. What a big irony that FT and IFC the private sector arm of the World Bank Group can find the need to mention sustainability and even award prizes to banks based on something that does not even appear in Basel I or Basel II or even in the thoughts of bank regulators.
In just the same vein we now read that “World Bank calls for microfinance rules” June 3 saying that “lenders making small loans to poor people in developing countries should be subject to regulation to prevent abusive practices” and we need to ask, does that not apply to lenders making big loans to rich people in developed countries?
Ever since the Basel Accord the only thing in the agenda of bank regulators has been to avoid bank defaults and that cannot simply be all the purpose there is to banking. What a big irony that FT and IFC the private sector arm of the World Bank Group can find the need to mention sustainability and even award prizes to banks based on something that does not even appear in Basel I or Basel II or even in the thoughts of bank regulators.
In just the same vein we now read that “World Bank calls for microfinance rules” June 3 saying that “lenders making small loans to poor people in developing countries should be subject to regulation to prevent abusive practices” and we need to ask, does that not apply to lenders making big loans to rich people in developed countries?
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