It isn’t often that we have cause to praise George Osborne here at The Staggers but today is one of those rare occasions. Having previously resisted calls from MPs for the government to toughen up its proposed banking reforms, the Chancellor has now decided that regulators will, after all, have the power to break up the banks if they try to evade new rules aimed at ensuring they are no longer too big to fail. The ring-fence separating their retail and investment arms will be “electrified” (one might call it the “Jurassic Park solution”).
Osborne is giving a speech at 10:30am at JP Morgan’s office in Bournemouth (yes, bankers do exist outside of London, is the message from his choice of venue) and will say:
My message to the banks is clear: if a bank flouts the rules, the regulator and the Treasury will have the power to break it up altogether – full separation, not just ring fence.
He will add:
We’re not going to repeat the mistakes of the past. In America and elsewhere, banks found ways to get around the rules.
Greed overcame good governance. We could see that again – so we are going to arm ourselves in advance. We will electrify the ring fence
Proving that, like the Bourbon kings of France, they have learned nothing and forgotten nothing, the banks have hit back at Osborne, accusing him of creating “uncertainty for investors” (and more certainty for the rest of us?)
Anthony Browne, the head of the British Bankers’ Association (formerly Boris Johnson’s economic policy director and the director of Policy Exchange) said: “This will create uncertainty for investors, making it more difficult for banks to raise capital which will ultimately mean that banks will have less money to lend to businesses.
“What banks and business need is regulatory certainty so that banks can get on with what they want to do, which is help the economy grow. This decision will damage London’s attractiveness as a global financial centre.”
Labour has responded more favourably to Osborne’s move, describing it as a “partial climb down”, but also raising two major concerns. First, that the new power to break up the banks will only apply to those that misbehave under the new criteria, rather than across the board. Second, that Osborne is planning to introduce a cap on leverage set at 33 times banks’ capital, rather than the tougher 25-times limit proposed by the Vickers report.
Shadow Treasury minister Chris Leslie said: “If the reports are correct and the Chancellor is planning to stop short on both the backstop powers and legislation for the leverage ratio, then there will be a very real sense in the country that despite all the rhetoric the Chancellor hasn’t got the appetite for the radical banking reform we need.”
Having already conceded that his original position on ring-fencing was wrong, Osborne will need to address these criticisms in his speech if he’s to have any credibility on this issue.
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