ESRB: stand ready for recapitalisation
The European Systemic Risk Board, the European Union’s macroprudential authority, has this evening called for the region’s supervisors to cooperate on efforts to strengthen bank capital.
The move comes less than a month after Christine Lagarde, the IMF’s managing director, was panned by many for calling for a recapitalisation of European banks.
This from the statement: Read more
European economic policies will come under more scrutiny from this month when the European Central Bank takes the lead in a new financial police authority with whistle-blowing powers to prevent future crises.
The European systemic risk board (ESRB), chaired by Jean-Claude Trichet, ECB president, will have powers to issue warnings and recommendations when it sees threats to economies or financial systems. But it could have a tough time proving that such limited powers, wielded by European officials, can prevent financial market turmoil on the scale seen in the past three years. Read more
Imagine that in January, you will become your country’s chief firefighter, but that the very best reports of smoke currently available are unreliable and intermittent. Scared?
Well, the European Systemic Risk Board is due to launch in January, and the ECB’s vice president has just pointed out that, on current data availability, the Board would struggle to do its job. That job, as a quick reminder, is to “assess and prevent potential risks to financial stability in the EU.” No small task, with markets febrile and bank bail-outs still in vogue.
The ECB has a fair bit of data already, but it is geared towards monetary policy rather than macro-prudential regulation. So, what’s missing? 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
