September 03, 2012

The bankers are what bankers always have been… not so bank regulators.

Sir, in “Changing Banking” September 3, you hold that “banks need to behave more responsible”. Of course, who would argue with that? But the subject you avoid touching with a ten foot pole, is that bank regulators too, must behave much more responsibly. 

Just as examples they are irresponsibly regulating the banks without having defined a purpose for the banks and they have irresponsibly appointed themselves as risk managers for the world, doling out risk weights here and there, which determine the capital requirements for the banks and which so dangerously distort the markets. 

No! The bankers are what bankers always have been… not so the bank regulators. 

PS. Yesterday I managed to sit down a prominent and important bank regulator in my chair, though he remained invisible and quite silent