November 28, 2013

FT if this is the way European banks “derisk”, there is no doubt that Europe is getting to be much riskier.

Sir, Patrick Jenkins writes “banks have derisked since the crisis, cutting loans to companies and individuals…amplified their investment in sovereign bonds” “Time to force banks to kick their easy money habit” November 28.

To me anyone calling a reduction in loans to citizens and private sector and an increase in loans to the sovereign as a process of “derisking”, is either a communist or has no idea what he is speaking about.

And the “Funding for Lending” schemes that Jenkins refers to as a way of solving the “weak supply of credit to smaller business”, will not make a dent to a problem which derives from those insane capital requirements for banks where these, in marginal terms, under Basel III, need to hold 7 percent in capital when lending to a European, but zero percent when lending to its sovereign.

No Sir, if European banks are “derisking” this way, there is no doubt that Europe is getting to be a much riskier place.

Don´t you find something to be very wrong when banks are given so many incentives by the Regulator of Nottingham to lend to King John and not to Robin Hood?