What happened to the whipping boy of bank capital?

This week, financial markets were spooked by the write-down of Additional Tier 1 securities of Credit Suisse. Soon after the writedown, a discussion ensued regarding its legitimacy. One camp argues that investors in these securities should have read the instruction manual. See the pointy opinion piece in IFR by Prasad Gollakota, the former co-head of… Read More What happened to the whipping boy of bank capital?

That feeling when you notice that EU leverage ratio requirements are at risk

This week, the EBA and BCBS published the Basel III monitoring results. They show a further improvement of European banks’ capital positions, largely fulfilling the future regulatory capital requirements, with only a very small number of banks suffering from potential capital shortfalls. I found Figure 9 of the EBA report interesting. It shows the evolution… Read More That feeling when you notice that EU leverage ratio requirements are at risk

Results of EU consultation on bank financing are out

Following up on an earlier post, the EC now published the answers on its consultation on long term finance. Thought the topic is hot, only 87 responses were submitted*, of which only two by academics. One by Martin Hellwig, the other by Martien Lubberink. The low public participation by academics is depressing, given that they called… Read More Results of EU consultation on bank financing are out

FYI some documentation on the Leverage Ratio for EU banks

My post on EU leverage ratios yesterday attracted some comments on twitter, which may haven been triggered by misunderstandings. The CRR offers a short and clear summary of the Leverage Ratio definition in Article 429.1: “The leverage ratio shall be calculated as an institution’s capital measure divided by that institution’s total exposure measure and shall… Read More FYI some documentation on the Leverage Ratio for EU banks

Yay! EBA presents the 2015 EU-wide transparency exercise results

Today, the EBA presented the 2015 EU-wide transparency exercise results. I am reading the data, which shows improvements in the resilience of the EU banking sector, covers around 70% of total EU banking assets for the reference dates of 31 December 2014 and 30 June 2015. (Some banks have not even published their capital positions… Read More Yay! EBA presents the 2015 EU-wide transparency exercise results

Five years after the first Basel III coco issuance, the Netherlands “gets” CoCos.

Uh oh, Jeroen Dijsselbloem form the Netherlands got into rough water this week: Dutch newspaper NRC had a nice scoop that showed how he relied on ING word smiths for writing a tax rule that renders bank capital instruments (CoCos) tax deductible, see full freedom of information documentation here. How bad is this? End 2013,… Read More Five years after the first Basel III coco issuance, the Netherlands “gets” CoCos.