金融時報:雨天基金與英國銀行業(yè)

雨天基金與英國銀行業(yè)

銀行居然也會缺錢？資本缺口是什么意思？英國銀行業(yè)250億英鎊的資本短缺是怎樣造成的？又有什么影響？FT社論作者Martin Sandbu用簡介通俗的對話形式教授貨幣銀行學(xué)入門，并給你講一個并不復(fù)雜的道理：“出來混，遲早要還的”。

測試中可能遇到的詞匯和知識：

restructuring [ri?'str?kt??r??] n.這里指的是資本重組，如通過債轉(zhuǎn)股的形式將銀行的債主轉(zhuǎn)變?yōu)楣蓶|。

weighted ['we?t?d] adj.加權(quán)的

refrain [r?'fre?n] n./v.疊句，重復(fù)

eurozone periphery 歐元區(qū)邊緣國家。德法荷等為核心國家，而南歐葡萄牙、希臘等國家即為邊緣國家。

mischief ['m?st??f] n.惡作劇，損害

interest swap 利率互換

Threadneedle Street 倫敦的針線街，英格蘭銀行和波羅的海交易所所在地

gnome [n??m] n.侏儒，精靈。記得《哈利·波特》中的銀行家是什么形象嗎？

rustle up 湊集到，籌集到

A rainy-day fund for what went wrong (772 words)

By Martin Sandbu

‘UK banks have a collective capital shortfall of £25bn and must close it by the end of the year with new capital and restructuring, the UK’s new financial stability regulator announced.’

FT.com, March 27

Wait a minute – start from the beginning. What’s bank capital?

Banks need to keep a safety cushion of cash and assets in case their investments go sour. That’s how they make sure people leaving money in banks can get it back.

How much do they keep?

Ah – that’s a difficult question. The amount is “risk-weighted”. They require less capital for investments that are safe.

Like government bonds ...

Maybe not all of them ...

... and they need more capital if they invest in something that is more likely to go wrong.

Exactly.

So banks needing more capital sounds like bad news. Wasn’t getting the banks back into shape the reason for throwing so much money at them?

It’s becoming a bit of a refrain to say that things are worse than we thought. But that’s what the Bank of England’s Financial Policy Committee is saying. The banks have too little capital because they are still likely to lose money from decisions they made before the crisis.

I see. What kind of decisions are we talking about?

You could divide them into mistakes and mischief. The mistakes were the bad investments they made – the FPC mentions the eurozone periphery and UK commercial real estate. The mischief was stuff such as manipulating the Libor benchmark rate and selling payment protection insurance and interest swaps to people who didn’t need them.

Haven’t banks paid for this already?

They have. But now the regulators think it could get even worse. They reckon that between them banks may still face a cool £10bn in fines or compensation claims. That’s if there’s no other scandal waiting to come out of the woodwork, mind you.

That’s reassuring. How do we know that the BoE is right this time and that £10bn is the end of it?

We don’t.

Right. And the bad investments?

That’s not exactly news either. Here, too, the eagle-eyed experts in Threadneedle Street have decided that losses could be worse than the banks have estimated.

Wait ... than the banks have estimated? You mean we are taking the banks’ word for how much they stand to lose?

Surprised? It’s been part of international bank regulation, set in Basel, for years. You know how banks need to hold that “capital” stuff against the investments they make? Well, the big ones may often use their own models to estimate how risky their investments are and how much capital they actually need to hold.

Are you kidding me? These banks thought subprime mortgages were ultra-safe!

Don’t yell at me, go talk to the gnomes of Basel. But, to be fair, the regulators are on to this. The third reason banks have to rustle up more capital – apart from investment losses and additional punishment for their sins – is that their risk weights have been found to be too low.

They have been cheating.

Using what they called a “more prudent approach”, the regulators suggested that UK banks were not holding enough capital, given the riskiness of their portfolios.

And all of this adds up to them needing £25bn more?

Er, no, it adds up to £50bn. But the Bank of England thinks some of the shortfall is in banks that have capital to spare. So only £25bn of new equity is needed.

Let’s hope they’re right. What does this mean for me, though? Are the banks going to let me do my own risk-weighting so I can get a better mortgage deal?

Not quite. Anyway, who do you bank with?

There’s not much choice.

Too right. The government wants more competition, so they are letting new banks get away with less capital for each deal. The hope is to make it easy for new banks to attract customers. You should give it a try.

What if I want to stay with my own bank? It’s such a hassle to switch accounts.

The government promises to fix that too. Until it does, if you’re stuck with your bank things depend on how it goes about raising capital ratios. If it finds investors who want to buy new shares, great. If not, it must choose between limiting bonuses and dividends, or shrink its lending to meet the ratio.

We know what that means!

The regulators promise they will not let banks react to the rule by lending less ...

We’re in safe hands then.

請根據(jù)你所讀到的文章內(nèi)容，完成以下自測題目：

1.What is true about "bank capital"?

A. It is provided by the government.

B. Banks need constant capital injection year by year.

C. The money deposited in a bank is its capital.

D. The more a bank invests in high-risk assets, the more capital it needs.

答案(1)

2.Why do British banks need more capital?

A. They made too much bad investments before the crisis.

B. They underestimated the risk of their investment.

C. Also, they need capital to pay fines for their wrongdoings.

D. All of above.

答案(2)

3.What might not be a choise for the banks?

A. Raise capital in the stock market.

B. Shrink their lending.

C. Limit bonuses for employees.

D. Pay less dividends to shareholders.

答案(3)

4.Who might be happy about the news(capital shortfall)?

A. Stockholders of the banks involved.

B. Depositors of the banks involved.

C. New banks and foreign banks.

D. British bank regulators and central bankers.

答案(4)

* * *

(1) 答案：D.The more a bank invests in high-risk assets, the more capital it needs.

解釋：這正是本文的一個要點。 銀行的資本是銀行股東提供的“本錢”，如果銀行業(yè)務(wù)不斷擴張而自身利潤不能支持的話， 才需要補充資本。儲戶的存款是銀行的負債，資本加上負債，就是銀行可以用來放貸和投資的資金。 如果銀行投資的資產(chǎn)中，低風(fēng)險的較多，則可以用較少的自有資本和較多的負債來投資。反之亦然。

(2) 答案：D.All of above.

解釋：ABC都是正確答案。

(3) 答案：B.Shrink their lending.

解釋：文章倒數(shù)第二句說，The regulators promise they will not let banks react to the rule by lending less ...

(4) 答案：C.New banks and foreign banks.

解釋：央行的金融政策委員會認為英國的銀行還面臨著100億英鎊的賠償或罰款——目前沒有發(fā)現(xiàn)更多違法行為的情況下。 顯然，銀行的股民要面臨股息減少和股價下跌了。而監(jiān)管當局為了金融穩(wěn)定和經(jīng)濟增長，一方面要敦促銀行抓緊時間大舉融資，另一方面要動用種種手段防止銀行 緊縮放貸。儲戶會擔(dān)心自己存款的安全，這時候新開的銀行和外資銀行肯定會高興。