big banks

It has been a feature of this crisis that CEOs of several big banks had a retailing background, not a banking background.

These rules mean that big banks are no longer going to be able to make risky bets with your deposits.

We learned from the disaster at AIG that you can't build a moat around the big banks and call it a day.

At 20%, the prevailing "reserve ratio" means big banks need to park 20 cents of every dollar they have on deposit, she said.

But it has watered down its proposed code on pay, which will now not be compulsory for big banks in London.

Among big banks, BofA has made it a speciality, becoming the "official bank" of several sports and forming partnerships with several teams.

The issue was that all big banks were stricken with toxic mortgage securities, and nobody knew how big their losses would be.

But they cannot risk the sort of capital that big banks will put up to facilitate trades in stocks.

In London many small hedge funds cluster in Mayfair, far west of the City and Canary Wharf where the big banks camp out.

President Obama says the big banks that were in critical condition a year ago do not need any new government help.

This time, as a result of the bank rescue, some big banks may be paying no dividends at all for years.

The stress tests did not stop investors offloading shares in Europe's big banks, even those with the thickest capital cushions.

The only condition would be that the four big banks would have to convey the assets at year-end, audited book values.

For all that, the big banks are liquid and soundly capitalized. Smaller banks are a different story.

While many big banks have recovered since the dark days of lastautumn, Goldman has powered ahead in profitability.

Couper, whose advisory firm, Carte Blanche Communications, works with a number of big banks to help structure their courses .

The big banks seem to think that the provisioning cycle for bad debts overall is at or near a peak .

China's big banks helped fund some of these unofficial lenders as a way around Beijing's efforts to tighten credit.

In principle, he said, requiring big banks to hold more capital so they have bigger cushions to absorb losses makes sense.

They argue that British and American regulators are inclined to be soft on a business that brings their big banks so much revenue.

In fact, heads of some of Wall Street's other big banks seem still to be in a strong position.

The notion that there could also be some down sides to a wholesale government takeover of America's big banks is given short shrift.

George Soros said the Obama administration's plans to tax and curb the activities of big banks are 'premature. '

Soros said the proposal would lead big banks to split up and spin off investment arms.

There he warned voters to "look under the hood" of Mr Brown's truck and mocked him for opposing the new levy on big banks.

Banking and insurance shares were the heaviest drag on the index, with all five big banks among the top decliners.

Big losses would be particularly painful for big banks, which have come to rely heavily on card revenue to offset capital-markets losses.

A more-solid foundation, relatively speaking, is provided by Washington's commitment that big banks won't be allowed to fail.

With a little help from the regulators, the big banks can now declare themselves duly stress-tested, but the systemic instabilities remain.

Outsize bonuses at big banks and securities firms have never been more controversial.

With both parts of their businesses threatened, Switzerland's big banks are in an uncomfortable spot.

But even if there were, the case for big banks holding higher levels of loss-absorbing capital would not be weakened.

Meanwhile, about twenty big banks are being forced to undergo "stress tests, " to see if they need more capital.

Once a buttoned-up industry, its change in attitudes is now apparent, from the open-necked hedge fund managers of Mayfair to the big banks.

But the financial crisis has tainted the image of big banks, and with fewer financial jobs available, Uncle Sam may be reaping the benefit.

The market seems to like it when big banks slim down these days, and several are doing just that.

Proprietary trading and investments are a small part of most big banks' activities and played only a minor role in the crisis.

Rumors say bank regulators want the big banks to have ratios of at least 13%.

Both its asset-management and its financing sides have been winnowed out, thanks to the disappearance or withdrawal of several big banks.

The author finds evidence that big banks are better than super or small banks in term of utilizing the advantage of scale of economy.

Only one of Britain's big banks, HBOS, made losses that would have overwhelmed the new Basel capital standards.

Not having a distinct list of demands or qualifications besides a general sense of anger at Big Banks and government bailouts?

This had led to claims that AIG's rescue was a "backdoor bail-out" of big banks.

Almost all the big banks offer students interest-free loans, as well as a range of gifts designed to win them over.

So far they have yet to make a major splash, as the big banks still dominate deal league tables.

Unlike in the Lehman case, I do not think governments should allow big banks that are cornerstones of their economies to go under.

As companies expand abroad, they want big banks to help them manage their finances across the world.

Only one of Britain's big banks, HBOS, made losses that would have overwhelmed the new Basel standards.

Business volumes are likely to fall in markets that have been producing a rising proportion of revenue at the big banks (see chart 11).

The fall-out of the credit crunch saw big banks disappearing or forced into panicky mergers with erstwhile rivals.

But he worries about a "skewing of the playing field" in favor of the big banks, putting community banks at a disadvantage.

The FSB will also help to ensure that the rules governing big banks are commensurate with the cost of their failure.

But until this week, most policymakers were reluctant to attack the big banks too publicly, in terms of size.

Big banks have reduced their sovereign debt exposure, but they still have tens of billions of dollars of it.

It says protecting only a few big banks will cause short sellers to target smaller ones.

That's particularly striking because, on fundamentals, ICBC is among the strongest and most conservative of China's big banks.

Under the national policies influence of controlling overcapacity, big banks have pulled out of the steel industry.

Among institutions, though, big banks look better able to weather any brewing storm.

Of the big banks that were helped by the Troubled Asset Relief Programme, only Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Citigroup have yet to repay.

Some governments have imposed windfall taxes on the big banks; the US has legislated for a tougher regulatory regime.

the central bank poured billions into big banks and the money market in a forlorn bid to calm fears.

The same goes for big banks, which are protected against big losses yet able to retain their profits.

The first reason for that was the strength of the four big banks.

with many big banks for loan approval powers up the difference, Zhejiang Bank delegated approval authority.

Graseck, who said she believes more capital raising and dividend cuts might be in store for big banks.

But big banks influence the rules governing derivatives through a variety of industry groups.

Next up will be a clash over whether big banks should be forced to take back billions of dollars in contaminated mortgages they sold.

China's big banks and investment companies have the bulk of that business now.

CHINA'S big banks each "have almost more branches than we have employees" , says one Western bank boss. He is only half joking.

It might in the end be more fruitful than trying to find ways of making big banks totally safe.

But the biggest emerging markets, China, India and Russia, are state-dominated and no big banks are likely to come on the block.

All this doesn't mean Goldman's clients will flee to other big banks, which face similar challenges.

Most small and medium-sized banks fall into this category, whereas big banks tend to be "liability sensitive" .

Make no mistake, big banks will not be submitting to new regulations without a fight.

AgBank has long been considered the weakest of China's big banks, with a bigger legacy of bad loans that delayed its coming to market.

During the credit bubble, even small hedge funds made speculative bets by selling big banks insurance protection on mortgage-backed bonds.

The global wholesale lending market is where big banks lend to one another.

Moreover, no big banks wobbled, let alone had to be rescued, though there were some mergers.

The resonances with contemporary America were powerful: the working and middle classes have once again been holed by the big banks.

Dexia is not alone. Two big banks in France, BNP Paribas and Societe Generale, have reported losses of more than one billion dollars.

That leaves Canada's big banks, including Scotiabank, TD Bank Financial Group, RBC Royal Bank and CIBC, at a competitive disadvantage.

Belgium, with its big banks and huge public debt, has benefited from being an insider too.

Like Canada, Australia has only a handful of big banks that kept their noses clean before the crisis, largely eschewing toxic securities.

Citi led the big banks into a new era of growth and diversification.

Government debt to gross domestic product is low (though the problem loans of the big banks should probably be included in the calculus).

The big banks have lost out now that companies no longer depend on them to offer hedges on interest-rate and currency movements.

Another idea in regulatory circles is to force big banks to hold a larger capital buffer than smaller ones.

In scenes reminiscent of the 2008 financial crisis, big banks spent Sunday preparing for a hairy trading day Monday.

Esoteric securities backed by these mortgages were grossly mis-valued by the computer models of big banks and credit rating agencies.

BofA has been the slowest of the big banks to ease the terms of its loans, the Treasury revealed on August 4th.

The big banks completed a round of capital raising in 2010, so do not face immediate pressure.

last week, the stocks of many big banks sank on the Obama administration's proposal to limit their business activities.

They conclude that the system is endemically weak and that the big banks will come back repeatedly for capital without further reform.

When it comes to credit-card losses, other big banks appear to have more to worry about than J. P. Morgan.

The Big Banks would be subjected to higher capital and liquidity standards.

Asked directly if Republicans were acting on behalf of big banks, Mr. McConnell replied, "I'd say that's inaccurate. "

But what do they do with these big banks, these few big banks that are in big trouble? -Well, I think - I think a plan has been laid out.

When China privatised its big three energy companies and big banks, it courted western oil majors and financial institutions to take stakes.

The big banks like Bank of China and ICBC opened up their coffers and liquidity flooded the system.

Eurozone policymakers are intent on forcing big banks to boost capital ratios, prompting many lenders to pledge a mass divestment of assets.

Although Asia's big banks may be shunning New York, the continent's technology companies keep coming.

In international bank industry, many big banks have realized the global expansion strategy through cross-border M & A investment.

Big banks were among the worst hit due to their high exposure to European debt.

Yes, times are tough. The big banks are on life support. Home prices are in the pits. The stock market's tanked. Unemployment's way, way up.

The agreement reached last week came after mounting pressure from the big banks and the Bush administration to resolve the uncertainty.

In a sign of flush times, some big banks are now even offering their best customers private jet services.

The FSB will make recommendations to the November G20 summit with a capital surcharge on big banks set to be one.

This was a shock since investors had thought the US government would protect big banks, because it prevented a bankruptcy at Bear Stearns.

The bigger problem, though, isn't so much China's big banks but the country's local governments.

Citi and other big banks wisely chose not to follow the lead of Bank of America (BAC) in imposing fees for using debit cards.

In recent years, the intense demand for asset-backed securities fueled a lending boom that let big banks offer more generous terms on loans.

Should the big banks be shaking in their boots? Probably not. But these alternatives may encourage them to sharpen up their act.

'We've checked out what all the banks can offer, but the big banks won't lend to us, ' Mr. Li said.

Of course, China's government has deep pockets and will stand behind the big banks if any problems arise.

Still, the disaster doesn't appear to be a major risk for China's big banks and insurers.

In that trade, investors bought credit insurance on Greece from big banks, which serve as market makers in cash and derivative trades.

In effect, the IMF wants a repeat of what America's Treasury did in 2008, when it bullied big banks into taking capital injections.

Government stress tests revealed a badly damaged but still viable cadre of big banks, and those results shored up confidence.

Big banks and investors who made subprime loans or bought securities backed by them are reporting billions of dollars in losses.

Investors fear the two big banks could choose to inject further capital into their consumer-lending partners.

But all of the big banks in the foreign-exchange market, they say, were called and urged to curb their dollar purchases.

Exile on Wall Street: One Analyst's Fight to Save the Big Banks from Themselves. By Mike Mayo.

Overall revenues fell at several big banks, both over the previous quarter and year on year.

But with capital ratios tight and the Treasury's bail-out kitty now almost depleted, that could push several big banks towards insolvency.

Taxes on capital markets' turnover could even strengthen the privileged position of big banks in the financial system.

In return for the guarantee big banks agree to take instructions from the ECB acting on behalf of governments.

I think the Obama administration has succumbed to political pressure and scaremongering by the big banks.

And it's exactly those huge profits from everything but banking that have put the final nail in the big banks as banks.

Yes, it discourages big banks and financial institutions from making risky bets with taxpayer-insured money.

But it must be recalled that rather a lot of the world's big banks are now part-owned by governments.

It is not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly , whether they are big banks or small borrowers.

The problem: No one has confidence in the financial strength of the nation's big banks.

Yet the big story is that of the rise of China's big banks.

The big banks insist that they have to be big in order to provide the services that their corporate clients demand.

Fitch Ratings on Wednesday evening lowered its ratings on five big banks from Denmark, Finland, France and the Netherlands.

Because the big banks front-load much of the year's lending, a slowdown in their lending rates is naturally occurring.

The Treasury is injecting $125 billion into nine big banks and making a like amount available for other other banks that apply.

Making the structures of big banks less tax-efficient could cost them hundreds of millions of dollars, tax experts warn.

Some big banks have disintegrated and others have taken government handouts and guarantees to survive.

Mr Sarkozy even wants big banks in the G20 countries to cap total bonus payouts to a fraction of their revenues.

Credit spreads have narrowed significantly and the big banks are recovering, some even making enough money to pay back Tarp bail-out funds.

But the strengthening of the big banks may be distorting the market.

Next week, a number of the other big banks report their third-quarter earnings.

The gold price rallied and the cost of insuring against defaults by big banks has shot up.

And small brokers, unlike big banks, are still permitted by regulators to pay all-cash bonuses.

Credit rating agency Moody's has downgraded France's three big banks due to their difficulty borrowing money.

America's big banks may face regulatory uncertainty but they take the shelter of government support.

If that happens, the government could wind up owning a stake of at least 50% in several big banks.

Even the best performing big banks have lost a third of their value in that period.

We need big banks, in particular, to have strong loss-absorbing buffers, and that is the role played by equity capital.

Big banks say they must compete for staff with foreign firms that are not subject to restraints.

Curbs or bans on certain businesses could eat into profits of big banks, hedge funds and private-equity firms alike.

Like many big banks, UBS has overhauled its bonus structure to more closely align pay with long-term performance.

Going into the credit crisis, its two big banks had an extra buffer equivalent to about 1. 5% of risk-weighted assets.

Indeed, before the credit crunch 11% of Edinburgh's jobs were in financial services and about half were in these two big banks.

The KKR addition reflects the new reality of Wall Street regulation: Big banks have less room to wager their own money in the markets.

Big banks, however, still have enough lobbying power to ensure that not every decision goes against them.

The last of China's big banks to publicly list shares, it originally hoped to raise as much as $30 billion.

Other big banks also may need to reassess their CDO holdings in light of Merrill's sale.

During the past few years, the big banks have regained their financial health and seen their earnings grow.

I sketched in part of the vacuum that's forming in the traditional banking business in my Oct. 27 column, "Why big banks hate banking. "

Alone among big banks, Wells does not hold a quarterly call for analysts.

I assume that China would do the same thing this time around if bad loans threatened any of the country's big banks.

First, the big banks are state-owned and their chairmen appointed by the government, so they tend to follow Beijing's orders.

A third concern among America's thousands of small banks has been that Basel 2 would give big banks an unfair advantage.

All of this will conspire to reduce the profitability of Switzerland's two big banks.

In the financial sector, only big corporations and rich people have access to big banks and equity markets.

Indeed, at the current market prices, major big banks are bankrupt several times over.

co-ordinated ways of cleaning up after the failure of big banks without having to splinter them like jigsaw puzzles.

In recent years, the big banks have used their China connections to climb the league tables.

The bombardment began on January 14th, with a new ten-year tax on big banks' liabilities.

Until they do, big banks that are seen as too important to fail will continue to get cheaper funding than their rivals.

But the proposal will be fought by regulators and by small banks which fear that big banks would capture the new agency.

By all means, let's limit the power of the big banks.

The big banks are also client-oriented, and not tied to proprietary trading and investments, he says.

Large buyers and institutional investors generally buy the metal from big banks.

Federal securities regulators are taking a deeper look at the role of big banks in executing currency trades for clients.

Mishandling mortgage paper may cost the big banks tens of billions, but won't put them under.

"We can't sit around and wait for the big banks to come to us, " explains Dixon Doll, a former chairman of the NVCA.

The exposure of America's big banks to Latin America was enormous; formal write-downs of debt would have left many of them insolvent.

It is also considering a liquidity surcharge, which would require big banks to hold proportionately higher levels of liquid funds.

Also thwarting private equity are massive conglomerates and big banks.

At the remaining two big banks with state ownership, things still look very messy.

Should Big Banks Be Regulated as Utilities? Should Big Banks Be Regulated as Utilities?

The loans they bought from the big banks a decade ago are still a millstone around their necks.

Instead, other big banks stopped taking the other side of Bear's trades and pulled credit lines.

However, reducing big banks to manageable proportions could be a question not just of size but also of the scope of activities.

In the time His fealty bought, a strange and wondrous thing: Like dominoes the world's big banks collapsed.

Big banks thus benefit from a law of large numbers.

With some big banks up more than 30% over the past two days, the current bet is that a turnaround is possible.

Falling stock prices don't affect bank customers, and there are no imminent worries about big banks' access to funds.

Among big banks, Wells scores poorly on Tier-1 common equity, the core-capital measure favoured by regulators (see chart).

In the past few years, all the surviving big banks have raised more capital and become profitable again.

House prices continue to fall, and Wall Street worries about more huge losses at big banks.

HSBC and Standard Chartered are also reportedly angling to return, and other big banks have put out feelers.

That's why we've put an end to the wasteful subsidies to big banks that provide student loans.

Executives of big banks have spent hours briefing regulators on their plans.

In practice, it also defends the dominance of the big banks.

But hedge funds have much less leverage than the big banks and the industry is much less concentrated.

All the big banks are state-owned and their chairmen are appointed by the government.

Beijing has encouraged big banks like ICBC to lend funds to jump-start the economy.

Temasek, the Singapore state-owned investment company, sold shares in two of China's big banks for $3. 6bn.

I have already stressed the role of monetary policy and the fact that big banks are managed by managers and not by capitalists.

But Beijing still owns majority shares in all the big banks.

TARP injections, along with Fed-run stress tests, helped big banks with more than $100 billion in assets.

More foreclosures look inevitable; the three big banks are unlikely to survive in their current form.

But the scale of stupidity and greed at the big banks defies belief.

Italy's two big banks have pursued different paths over the past half-decade.

This raises a question: should big banks be regulated as utilities?

This means that big banks will probably not need to build costly parallel systems to comply with American rules.

Four big banks have agreed. They hold seventy percent of Chrysler's debt.

Is the answer to restrict big banks to commercial activities?

Other big banks make similar cases, albeit less vocally .

According to SNL Financial, a research firm, big banks are making higher returns on equity than smaller ones.

It is hard to find fault with the argument that many big banks have become ungovernable.

Having shunned toxic assets, its four big banks look healthy.

But I wouldn't cap pay for success, including at big banks.

The big banks agree to buy out the little banks at an appropriate discount.

The City's big banks live off the fees.

Big banks like that: for them back-up systems are vital, and the cost of keeping a telex is trivial.

America's big banks published a mixed bag of third-quarter results.

The quarterly earnings season at America's big banks got under way.

For big banks, there is the threat that the agency will levy an emergency round of premiums.

The need to comply with regulations, and the global presence of big banks, adds complexity.

All big banks impose a "foreign loading charge" of around 2. 75% every time customers use their debit or credit card abroad.

Britain's big banks reported earnings for the first half.

The quarterly earnings season for big banks got under way.

But for about the past decade, especially the past five years or so, most big banks haven't been good investments.

The people are having a hard time understanding why big banks and insurers get bailouts and GM gets bankruptcy.

Many big banks have put on a hiring freeze and vowed to trim existing staff.

This localism underscores one of Mr Treichl's deeply held beliefs: that big banks fail because they become unmanageable.

Capital levels at China's big banks look healthy enough.

They want to tax wealth and bank profits, and to break up big banks.

Most of China's big banks have announced vast capital-raisings plans.

What Good Is Wall Street? Meanwhile, big banks also utilize many kinds of trading that aren't in the service of their traditional clients.

In times past, the market took its cue from the big banks.

When the government stepped in last October, it only took over the domestic operations of the three big banks.

Big banks argue this is unnecessary because risk is diversified across their larger balance sheets.

Big banks are like nuclear power stations.

settlement struck with big banks.

The big banks operate globally.

China's other big banks show similarly low total-equity-to-total-assets ratios: China Construction BankAgricultural Bank of China , 5. 14%.

The world's big banks have promised to clear more derivatives.

Indeed, big banks' share of the world's M&A business so far this year is five percentage points lower than it was last year.

The spreads at which big banks lend to each other, meanwhile, hit a two-month high.

Mr. Obama also says he wants to bar big banks from financial trading for their own benefit.

What is more, it is becoming ever clearer that the big banks face a wave of write-offs on their loans.

And most big banks wouldn't face anywhere near as severe a market-value hit.

A better version of capitalism also means a reduction in the clout of big banks.

Markets reacted badly, with shares down (particularly in big banks) and safe assets, such as gold, rallying.