Schattenbanken: So sieht der Stand der Regulierung aus

Für die Leser von Social Banking 2.0 habe ich nicht nur einen fiktiven Roman zu den Schattenbanken geschrieben, den es jetzt ermäßigt für 8,99 Euro hier zu kaufen gibt (jetzt auch via iBookstore und Amazon.) Ich dokumentiere hiermit aber auch in loser und unbearbeiteter Form heute den Stand der Regulierungsbemühungen zur dunklen Seite der Finanzindustrie.

Nachdem es mit einem Interview mit Mark Carney, dem Chef der obersten Behörde Financial Stability Board (FSB) aus „Zeitgründen“ nicht mehr geklappt hat, gebe ich den Pressetext aus der Konferenz am 10. Januar direkt an die Leser weiter. Weitere Fachartikel und kommentierende Einschätzungen folgen in den nächsten Wochen und Monaten. Hier findet man ein weiteres offizielles Dokument zum Status Quo.

Für einige Unruhe hat dabei der nicht ganz freiwillige Weggang des Schweizer Gremiummitglieds Philipp Hildebrand – hier die offizielle Version dazu – gesorgt, seines Zeichens immerhin bis vor kurzem der Chef der Schweizer Nationalbank. Mehr zum Skandal, der beträchtlichen Staub in der eidgenössischen Finanzwelt aufgewirbelt hat, etwa hier auf dem Politblog im Tagesanzeiger, der mit Blick auf die Leserkommentare die kontroverse „moralische“ Diskussion aufzeigt, was bei Eliten zulässig ist und was nicht. Aber horchen Sie selbst hinein, welche Fragen aufgetreten sind …

MODERATOR:

Good evening. Welcome to the first FSB press conference [indiscernible] I

would like to invite you to click off all mobile phones now and, unless otherwise stated, Mr.

Carney will be speaking in his capacity as Chair of the Financial Stability Board.

Just before putting a question to Mr. Carney, would you please identify yourself, giving your

name and newswire, newspaper or broadcasting outlet? May we ask you to put your question in

English, please.

For this FSB briefing, there will be no [indiscernible]. Thank you.

GOVERNOR CARNEY:

Thank you very much. Thanks to all of you for taking the time to

come here. This is, as you know, the first press conference for me since I succeeded Mario

Draghi as the FSB Chairman, and I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to Mario for

the tremendous job he did as the inaugural Chairman of the FSC.

Since its formation in 2009 and in just under two short years, under his leadership, the FSB has

achieved much to strengthen the resiliency of the global financial system; however, repairing that

system cannot be completed overnight and there remains much work to do.

So with that, I’d like to turn to the meeting we had here today. I’m going to provide a description

of the main points of discussion and conclusions. There will be a press release which I believe

we’ll distribute at the end of this press conference.

The meeting today was largely about, as you’d expect, the work plan for 2012, but we started

with a discussion of vulnerabilities in the global financial system. Despite the important steps

that have been taken over the last couple of years to strengthen financial stability over the longer

term, I think we’re all aware that, in the short term, vulnerabilities remain.

Authorities must continue to guard against the risk of a vicious feedback loop of sovereign debt

concerns, reduced confidence in the financial system and weaker economic conditions.

Governments must act forcefully to strengthen fiscal positions and bolster competitiveness

through structural reforms within concrete timetables.

The financial industry must continue to repair and strengthen balance sheets to rebuild resilience

to shocks. We welcome the steps that have been taken by authorities in Europe and elsewhere to

ease funding pressures on financial institutions.

In our meeting today, we agreed to maintain our close cooperation in monitoring the financial

system and our readiness to act as needed to contain the threat of spill-overs of problems

between countries and across regions.

A key element of the FSB’s reform program is its framework to address Systemically Important

Financial Institutions, of SIFIs. Last November, we announced a set of measures that apply to

institutions that are systemic at a global level and we published a list — initial list of 29 banks to

which these measures would apply.

We discussed today the work plan to extend that framework to cover all systemic institutions.

The FSB and the Basel Committee are developing modalities to extend the global SIFI

framework to domestic SIFIs. The International Association of Insurance Supervisors is

addressing the application of this framework — of the framework to the insurance sector and the

FSB will be working with IOSCO on applying the framework to firms that are neither banks nor

insurers.

Identification of SIFIs is not an end in itself; the purpose is to frame and apply policies

commensurate with the risk that those institutions pose, and this policy work has four main

elements. Effective resolution, additional loss absorbency, more intensive and effective

supervision and improved core financial market infrastructure. So I’m going to turn to those in

turn.

On resolution regimes, the publication of — by the FSC last November of a new international

standard, the Key Attributes of Effective Resolution Regimes, was a major step forward, and the

work has already begun to put those key attributes into effect. By the end of 2012 for each

global SIFI, authorities will develop resolvability assessments, recovery and resolution plans,

institution-specific cross-border cooperation arrangements and agreements so that home and host

authorities are better prepared for dealing with crises.

The FSB will conduct a peer review beginning in the second half of this year on the extent of

implementation in each of our member countries.

On enhancing supervision, improving the effectiveness of supervision is a vital element of the

SIFI work. The Basel Committee’s revised core principles published for consultation this past

December include important steps previously advocated by the FSB to strengthen the mandate

and resources of supervisors.

A crucial part of the FSB’s work in 2012 will be the reform of over-the-counter derivatives

markets. International coordination of reforms is essential in this highly complex area, which is

particularly susceptible to regulatory arbitrage. The FSB, as a consequence, has set up a

coordination group comprising the Chairs of the key standard-setting bodies. This coordination

group will ensure consistency in the development of international standards, address gaps and

ensure effective implementation.

An initial focus of this group will be to provide impetus to the work on four safeguards for global

framework for clearing, and the goal will be that, by June of this year, authorities outside the

main international financial centres can make informed decisions as to whether to rely on central

counter parties or whether to rely on global or local central counter parties in order to meet the

G20 commitment that all OTC derivatives will be centrally cleared by the end of this year.

Now, those four safeguards that I just referenced are multi-lateral arrangements on cooperative

oversight of CCPs, cross-border liquidity arrangements for those CCPs, robust resolution

regimes for them and fair and open access for market participants to these global CCPs.

We also took stock of our work plan on shadow banking and are committed to continue to drive

forward in the five main areas that have been previously identified to address those risks.

Implementation monitoring is a central element of — or a central theme this year and a top

priority of the Mexican Presidency. Agreed international reforms will only be effective if they

are fully and consistently implemented. We discussed today several elements of the FSB’s

implementation monitoring program.

We had agreed last October of a coordination framework for implementation monitoring,

including particularly detailed monitoring in priority areas, and one such area is monitoring full

and consistent implementation of Basel III according to agreed time lines. The Basel Committee

announced yesterday that it would conduct and publish country by country reviews of

implementation, and the FSB will work with the Basel Committee to monitor and report on

progress.

Another priority area for the FSB is monitoring of implementation of sound compensation

practices. Following up on the comprehensive peer review of national implementation of the

FSB’s principles published last October, we have agreed a process for ongoing monitoring,

including for bilateral handling by supervisors of complaints by firms in one jurisdiction about

compensation practices of firms in another jurisdiction.

Today, we also discussed several peer reviews, for which reports will be issued publicly in the

coming weeks; specifically, there were country reviews of Canada and Switzerland and a

thematic review of deposit insurance schemes across the FSB membership. We agreed today to

conduct three new peer reviews in 2012; namely, South Africa, risk governance at financial

institution, and peer review of resolution regimes.

In addition, the FSB is actively supporting work to create a legal entity identifier. This is a

single — as many of you know, it’s a single global system for uniquely identifying parties to

financial transactions. This will be an important step to help regulators and private firms better

understand and ultimately reduce systemic risk and the official sector, through the FSB, will

continue to work closely with the private sector to provide — and we will provide regular reports

on progress.

The FSB heard reports today on its newly-established regional consultative groups. These

groups have been established to widen the circle of countries involved in discussion of financial

sector policy issues. The six regional groups provide a forum for senior officials of over 60

countries outside of the FSB membership to discuss the core issues with FSB members. Three of

these regional groups, namely, the Americas, Asia and Europe, have already met. They met the

first time late last year, and press releases for each of those meetings were issued at the time.

The other three groups, the Middle East and North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa and the

Commonwealth of Independent States, will meet shortly.

We also discussed today — final point. We discussed today steps to be taken to strengthen FSB

governance, its capacity and resources as was specifically called for in the G20 Cannes summit

communiqué. We have expended the FSB steering committee to better achieve — to achieve,

rather, better geographic and institutional balance, including greater representation of emerging

markets and Ministries of Finance and the latter, obviously, Ministries of Finance will play an

increasing role in the application of macro prudential frameworks, but also in the implementation

of variety of the reforms I just mentioned, not limited to, but including, resolution regimes.

We also set up a high level group from within the FSB membership to examine options for

placing the FSB on a more enduring organizational footing, with legal personality and financial

autonomy, as called for by the G20. This group will be chaired by Jens Weidmann, the President

of the Bundesbank, and the FSB will report back to the G20 summit on progress in this in June.

And with that, I’m happy to take any questions, so we’ll — table to my right.

QUESTION:

[Indiscernible] from the national SIFIs [indiscernible].

GOVERNOR CARNEY:

That’s not decided. I presume people could hear the question. It’s

related to domestic or national SIFIs, specifically banks.

It’s not decided what the exact approach. There’s two broad approaches that can be taken here.

One is a rules-based approach similar — a formulaic approach, if you will, that potentially could

key off the existing framework or adapt, to some extent, the existing framework. The other is a

higher level principle-based approach that would recognize national differences in market

structure, size of financial sector relative to the economy.

We are examining both of these approaches, and I’m speaking in the broadest terms because

there’s lots of sub — amendments to that, both of these approaches, both in the Basel Committee

and in the FSB proper, and will come to a determination later this year. But no, your — the

premise of your question, that is not decided, that it would mirror the levels of loss absorbency

that are applied to global SIFIs.

QUESTION:

[Indiscernible] This is an area that the FSB has [indiscernible] before has a

problem [indiscernible]. What’s your assessment of how things are coming together right now

between Europe and the US?

GOVERNOR CARNEY:

I would say our assessment is that the discussions — Europe and the

United States and, in fact, a broader set of jurisdictions are under increasingly active and open

discussions and that, through this process, minor differences, gaps, overlaps, any inconsistencies

are being increasingly better identified and progress is being made.

The additional issue that I — to which I was referring in my remarks and that we discussed at

some length today is the implications of those global centres and the structures that are put in

place in global centres for the rest of the membership for, if you will, the tail of the global

derivatives world, which is considerable in terms of absolutely size of growths and potential

exposure and the mechanisms that can be put in place, not just to address our regulatory arbitrage

issues or inconsistencies, but to ensure that the overall system of central clearing, central counter

parties is consistent, is mutually consistent and robust. And that’s one of the reasons why we set

up this coordination group as well. Thank you.

Eric.

QUESTION:

It’s Eric [indiscernible] with the Global and Mail. Mr. Carney, what are your

thoughts on unusually priced [indiscernible] because [indiscernible] and who actually gets to

make that decision? Is that you and your colleagues at the FSB or would it be the G20, which

[indiscernible] November?

GOVERNOR CARNEY:

The decision to appoint in November by the plenary that was

welcomed by G20 leaders to appoint Philipp Hildebrand as Vice-Chair reflected the unique set of

skills and attributes that Mr. Hildebrand possess and the potential to most fully leverage, if you

will, those skills in the context of taking the FSB forward.

By consequence, the fact that Mr. Hildebrand had to resign from the FSB yesterday, the

consequence is that it does not immediately follow that there would be a replacement for that

position and that’s a decision that would be taken in the fullness of time and, ultimately, in

consultation with the G20 process.

We have a — I would say further we have quite a robust internal governance structure through a

committee structure that is driving forward the major reforms, and that has served the institution

well in the past and I expect that it will continue to do so in the future.

QUESTION:

Did you have a — [indiscernible]. Did you have a time line when you expect to

have a new Vice-Chairman?

GOVERNOR CARNEY:

I think if you listened to my answer, Eric, it implied that I might not

have a new Vice-Chairman. Thank you.

QUESTION:

It’s Jim [indiscernible] from [indiscernible]. I was wondering whether

[indiscernible] closer look at some of the [indiscernible] measures [indiscernible] taking for the

Basel [indiscernible] as you mentioned [indiscernible]. Are there any [indiscernible] EU

[indiscernible] the precise [indiscernible]?

GOVERNOR CARNEY:

Well, I think your question is exactly what this process that the Basel

Committee announced yesterday is meant to answer, that the insurance — to provide the

assurance that the Basel Rules, Basel III Rules are being consistently implemented across first

major jurisdictions. The announcement yesterday identified Europe, the US and Japan as the

first jurisdictions that the BCBS would examine in conjunction with the FSB’s implementation

monitoring and that there would be a reporting by the middle of this year in terms of — in effect,

answering your question as things stand, both for Basel II ½ and Basel III.

And if I may say that this is an important innovation because it is to use the experts, the people

who actually set the standards, to have them actively involved in monitoring the extent to which

those standards have been translated into reality in terms of the actual regulations. So that’s

precisely what is being done, and it’s a model that we would look to extend to other reforms as

they are actually put into place. Thank you.

QUESTION:

[Indiscernible]. Mr. Carney, can you please comment on Mr. Hildebrand’s

resignation yesterday [indiscernible] concern [indiscernible] Vice-Chairman of FSB and please

also comment on the fact that Mr. Hildebrand [indiscernible]?

GOVERNOR CARNEY:

Well, what — I’d like to reinforce what I said yesterday in a statement

of the FSB, and I’ll make two points in that regard.

One, that the entirety of the FSB membership thanks Dr. Hildebrand for his contribution over the

years, not just to the FSB, but to its predecessor, the FSF, and particularly, and I underscored this

in my comments, to his immense contributions to both the management of the crisis and the

development of the suite of the most important financial reforms, many of which have now been

put in place or are in the process of being put in place. So we very much regret that Dr.

Hildebrand had to resign yesterday. We respect that decision and we’ll move forward from here.

QUESTION:

And just comment on the [indiscernible]?

GOVERNOR CARNEY:

No comment on that.

QUESTION:

Were you surprised to hear so?

QUESTION:

[Indiscernible] National [indiscernible]. I have two questions [indiscernible].

Would you have an alternative to the resignation of Mr. Hildebrand [indiscernible] from the

FSB? And second question, do you think that [indiscernible]? Thank you.

GOVERNOR CARNEY:

I didn’t quite catch your first question, I’m afraid.

QUESTION:

[Indiscernible] do you see or would you have seen an alternative to the

resignation of Mr. Hildebrand in order [indiscernible]?

GOVERNOR CARNEY:

Well, I — what — the decision that Dr. Hildebrand took yesterday

was one that he took and in resigning from the Swiss National Bank from the FSB as a member

of the Governing Board of the Bank for International Settlements and a member of the Global

Economy Meeting by consequence of the BIS. And it was his decision.

I have utmost respect for his integrity and I fully respect the decision that he took, so I’m not

going to be — question his decision. This is clear.

The — and as I indicated in my earlier comments, he made an immense contribution to

management of the crisis and to the development of financial reforms. We will move forward as

an institution, the FSB. There are 24 countries, a variety of international organizations and

standard-setting bodies represented. There were 75 senior officials in the meeting today, and we

will continue to advance the program that I outlined, even though we do regret that Mr.

Hildebrand will not be with us.

QUESTION:

[Indiscernible]

GOVERNOR CARNEY:

It’s not for me to judge.

QUESTION:

Mr. Carney, Daniel Crewson, Geneva correspondent with CNN Washington. I

just wonder [indiscernible] pose another one. In regards to the domestic SIFIs, can you detail a

little bit more what your plans are for this year? Do you plan to have a complete framework

finished by the end of the year?

GOVERNOR CARNEY:

Yes.

QUESTION:

And that would include [indiscernible]. Who would choose the domestic SIFIs

[indiscernible] the national authorities or —

GOVERNOR CARNEY:

Well, I mean, this is — the short answer — the easy answer is the first

part of your question, the framework should be in place for domestic systemically important

banks by the end of this year. The exact mechanics of doing so, the degree of national discretion

versus a more rules-based approach, is under discussion, and I don’t want to prejudice that

discussion by handicapping it at this phase, their discussions both in the Basel Committee and

through the committee chaired by Lord Turner within the FSB.

They’re very productive discussions, very constructive and I would say that the issue is moving

forward quite smartly, but you know, we’ll — when we work towards conclusions, you will be the

first to know, you collectively will be the first to know, and we’ll come and detail those at that

time.

QUESTION:

If I may ask a question on sovereign debt within the context of global

[indiscernible] rules, there are assumptions under Basel, an assumption about the impact of Basel

which rely on the assumption that sovereign debt is zero risk or low risk and we’re seeing

increasingly that that doesn’t appear to be the case. Has the FSB had any discussions or are they

commencing discussions on perhaps reviewing that assumption? Are they looking at

recalculating or reviewing how sovereign debt is treated in the Basel framework?

GOVERNOR CARNEY:

It is an issue that relates to capital rules and to the liquidity

standards, the numerator, if you will, of the liquidity standards. It’s certainly an issue that the

Basel Committee, which is the relevant committee for these issues, it’s an issue of which they are

well aware.

QUESTION:

[Indiscernible]. Would you say that Switzerland lost its credibility at the banking

[indiscernible] with the [indiscernible] and now that?

GOVERNOR CARNEY:

We didn’t discuss that today at the FSB meeting, and I’d simply say

that, you know, Switzerland remains a core, productive member of the Financial Stability Board.

Its members today made productive interventions and contributions to our work. We look — we

continue to look forward to working with Swiss authorities at SIFMA, at the Ministry of Finance

and at the Swiss National Bank as we advance and implement the reform program, which will be

for the benefit of the resilience and competitiveness of the Swiss financial system as it will be for

all members of the FSB and, we believe, of the global financial system.

QUESTION:

Mr. Carney [indiscernible]. Did you discuss or have you discussed with the FSB

financial transactions [indiscernible] Europe [indiscernible] and what are the FSB’s views

[indiscernible]?

GOVERNOR CARNEY:

We did not discuss that today, no.

QUESTION:

[Indiscernible] Financial Times. Back to the systemically important financial

institutions, do you also expect to be done with the insurance folks by the end of the year?

GOVERNOR CARNEY:

Yes. [Indiscernible] but I believe — we had a detailed discussion

today on the work that IAIS is doing on potentially systemically important insurance companies

and that work is progressing, so given that broader timetable, I would expect that we would and,

further, that we would develop modalities and an approach for non-bank, non-insurer SIFIs. So

to use the colloquial term, SIFIs that are resident in the shadow banking sector at large, although

it’s not, to be honest, my favourite term because it’s too imprecise.

QUESTION:

On that, is it — is there [indiscernible] whether there should be a rule-based

system or a national system with — or are you [indiscernible] shadow banks?

GOVERNOR CARNEY:

The extent — shadow banks — insurance companies is a much more

mature discussion than the shadow banking discussion. And on insurance companies, since

we’re talking in global terms, it — we’re looking at global SIFIs as opposed to national because —

in part because of the differences in insurance models and subsidiarization that’s inherent in

most — many insurance models, it’s most appropriate to focus, really, on the global side.

It is towards a methodology. Maybe I’ll regret a bit using the term „rules-based“ because that’s a

little simplistic. It implies that there’s a, you know, a regression that is implied in order to give a

magic score for — but it’s towards a methodology that would be applied globally to a sub-set,

obviously. Potentially, it would be applied globally, but I’m not going to pre-judge its

application and say that there is a definitive list, because there’s not, of globally systemic

insurance companies.

As I indicated, in terms of — to speak broadly, you know, hedge funds, commodity trading

companies, other potential systemic institutions in the global financial markets, that work is

commencing — has commenced, rather, through IOSCO, but it is earlier stage, so — and I think

given the disparate nature of the business models, the funding models and the interactions with

the global financial system it would be surprising if there were a single approach that were

applied across the shadow banking sector. But we will see.

And as I say, you’ll be the first to know — amongst the first to know. Okay.

Actually, can we just see if there’s any other — anyone who hasn’t asked a question who wants to

ask a question before I double back? Okay. So you get to ask your fourth question, by my

counter.

QUESTION:

You mentioned, I think the words you used, were [indiscernible] sound

compensation practices. Did I get that right? Could you expand on that, Mr. Carney? What do

you have in mind? How would you define [indiscernible]?

GOVERNOR CARNEY:

Eric, we have defined the principles behind sound compensation

practices. It was in 2009. And what is in place — what’s been in place has been reviewed, both —

the first of which has been published, the second of which is —

UNIDENTIFIED:

The second has also been published.

GOVERNOR CARNEY:

Also been published across jurisdictions of how well those principles

have been applied.

And by and large, those have been positive reviews, to use a normative term; in other words, that

by and large, what has been found is that the adjustments that have been considerable to the

structure of compensation — we’re not talking about level, but to the structure of compensation —

have been consistent with the principles that were promulgated by the FSB and endorsed by G20

leaders in 2009. So we will continue with that.

That said, what I mentioned today is that there will always be and there has been, I think, specific

situations which arise where a — Institution X says Institution Y took my team or hired this

person inconsistent with those. Micro issues, you know, specific situations. And what we want

to set up is a — and what we announced, what I announced today, is that we will set up a bilateral

mechanism to handle those complaints.

Now, those complaints are obviously easy to address if they’re within one jurisdiction. You get

both institutions, you look at the package, you know the principles. As the supervisor, you

decide whether or not that’s the case. It’s more difficult if it’s across jurisdiction, so we set up

this formal — this process so that we ensure that these are dealt with on a bilateral basis and we

will track the results of those, you know, the type of issues that are arising, whether there’s

derogation, whether they’re concentrated in certain jurisdictions or not.

I would caveat all that by — or not caveat, but I would put into context that process which is to

deal with, as I say, specific instances that that is nested within the broader sense of reviews of

how well these principles have been applied, how widely they’ve been applied across

jurisdictions which has been favourably reviewed within the peer review process of the FSB.

Okay. So we’ll have the last question, since you seem half-hearted to even ask it.

QUESTION:

That’s probably only because [indiscernible]. What was it about compensation

that [indiscernible] mechanism whereas everything [indiscernible] peer reviewed [indiscernible]

to put this in a broader context, what does it say about the fact that maybe there’s, you know,

potentially, I guess you could call it, a rising level of mistrust among different jurisdictions about

[indiscernible] follow through?

GOVERNOR CARNEY:

I would say — I would not pin it to mistrust between jurisdictions. I

would say that there is an enduring mistrust between institutions, private institutions, about each

other’s compensation packages. Nobody can really believe that somebody would go from Bank

X to Bank Y for anything other than more money or in a way that, you know, it can’t be the

culture, it can’t be the prospects of it; it’s got to be that somehow they bent the rules and they pay

the — you know, that’s the natural reaction.

So I suspect, given the macro overview — but I suspect that we’re going to find in most of these

instances that are brought to our attention that the compensation arrangements are consistent with

the principles. That’s what I would suspect. But this process will reveal whether that is, indeed,

the case and we’ll be able to track it and see if there’s specific areas which — or specific

jurisdictions where it needs to be.

But I really don’t see that as the case going on, and I would say that it’s more characteristic of

how I described it, really, the private institutions. But you know what, that’s why you do it

objectively, rigorously, thoroughly, you do it over years, you find out what the real — what’s

really going on. And that’s the intent.

This is just another phase of ensuring that what is decided, you know, the high — and I’ll finish

with this. You get high level direction and principles from leaders, we work on developing the

reforms with teeth, and then we’ve got to make sure that these are actually implemented. And

then, as you implement them, you iterate on implementation, you adjust if necessary and you

keep at it and you keep at it until it becomes part of the fabric. And so that’s a lot — increasingly

with the FSB, you’re going to see this type of hard slogging implementation type work because

that’s what it takes to really have full effect of the reforms that have been announced.

So with that, I thank you very much again for your attention and interest. We’ll see you soon.

*** End of recording/fin de l’enregistrement ***