ECB improves its radar system
Bankers who re-package - or securitise - their loans and sell them on, not only contributed to the global economic crisis. They also disrupted the European Central Bank’s radar systems.
The ECB prides itself in its “monetary analysis” – the study of monetary aggregates and lending data for early signs of inflationary dangers, which is used when setting interest rates. But a new statistical database released by the ECB today shows how loan securitisation has confused the picture. Read more
A busy governor
Sir Mervyn King, as the Bank of England governor is now known, is a busy man. He runs the UK central bank and, insiders say, delegation is not his strongest characteristic.
In the reforms to the UK economic policy framework following the financial and economic crisis, the government will make Sir Mervyn busier still. On top of his duties as chief executive of the Bank, chairman of the Monetary Policy Committee and guardian of system-wide financial stability, he is geeting more duties to perform.
He now chairs the Financial Policy Committee, a body whose remit remains unclear but appears to add teeth to the financial stability role. He will also chair the board of the Prudential Regulatory Authority, the bank supervisory arm which will come to the Bank from the Financial Services Authority. It is no wonder that parliamentarians are concerned about accountability at the Bank. Read more
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Chris Giles has been the economics editor of the Financial Times since 2004. Based in London, he writes about international economic trends and the British economy. Before reporting economics for the Financial Times, he wrote editorials for the paper, reported for the BBC, worked as a regulator of the broadcasting industry and undertook research for the Institute for Fiscal Studies. RSS
Michael Steen, Frankfurt bureau chief, covers the ECB and the eurozone's economies. He joined the Financial Times in 2007 as Amsterdam correspondent and later worked as a front page news editor in London. Before joining the FT, he spent nine years as a correspondent at Reuters, mostly in foreign postings that included a previous stint in Frankfurt, as well as Moscow, Kiev and central Asia. He read German and Russian at Cambridge.RSS
Robin Harding is the FT's US economics editor, based in Washington. Prior to this, he was based in Tokyo, covering the Bank of Japan and Japan's technology sector, and in London as an economics leader writer. Robin studied economics at Cambridge and has a masters in economics from Hitotsubashi University, where he was a Monbusho scholar. Before joining the FT, Robin worked in asset management and banking. RSS
Ralph Atkins, capital markets editor, has been writing for the Financial Times for more than 20 years following an economics degree from Cambridge. From 2004 to 2012, Ralph was Frankfurt bureau chief, watching the European Central Bank and eurozone economies. He has also worked in Bonn, Berlin, Jerusalem and Brussels. RSS
Claire Jones is Money Supply economics team writer, based in London. Before joining the Financial Times, she was the editor of the Central Banking journal and CentralBanking.com. Claire studied philosophy and economics at the London School of Economics. RSS
