July 30, 2014

Luke Johnson. Who would be your favorite contender for the title of the mother of all start-up slayers?

Sir I would not argue one iota with Luke Johnson’s “Contenders for patron saint of start-ups” July 30.

That said it would be interesting to see who he opines is the number one contender for start-ups' slayer?

Clearly it has to be one prominent bank regulators, like Mario Draghi, Stefan Ingves, Mark Carney, Jaime Caruana or any other of those who concocted the venom against star-ups we know as the risk weighted capital requirements for banks.

Because of that the start-ups, usually perceived as “risky”, relatively to those perceived as “safe”, now have to pay even higher interest rates, get even smaller bank loans and have to accept even harsher terms than they used to.

And sadly the only result of that mumbo-jumbo regulation is that now our banks run the risks of too much exposure to what seems absolutely safe, while renouncing to the benefits of diversifying when lending to those who seems risky.

There is Sir, as you surely must understand, no future in such silly risk-aversion!