Asset Quality Review czyli czego boi się Europa?

"Otóż EBC sprawdza, co kryje się w aktywach największych banków strefy euro i czy przypadkiem nie dochodzi w nich do zaniżania wag ryzyka a przez to zawyżania współczynników wypłacalności i fałszowania obrazu kondycji całego sektora bankowego w Europie. Bankom zależy na tym, aby na papierze ryzyko przez nie podejmowane było jak najmniejsze, z uwagi na wymogi kapitałowe stawiane im przez regulacje Basel III/CRR/CRD IV. Zasada generalna jest następująca: im bardziej ryzykowne aktywa są w bilansie banku, tym więcej kapitału własnego dany bank powinien posiadać, aby zamortyzować ewentualny default ferelnego aktywa."

http://wykresologia.blogspot.com/2014/10/asset-quality-review-czyli-czego-boi.html

How to rip off a bank, Espirito Santo style

"I have been going through Banco Espírito Santo's half-year 2014 results. They make pretty grim reading. No, actually it's worse than that. They read like an instruction manual on how to rip off a bank.

I can't work out if the BES management at the time was stupid, naïve, complacent or criminal. Probably all four. No matter – it has now been entirely replaced. Well, I say “no matter” - but actually such abysmal management DOES matter. Those responsible for audit, risk and compliance have been guilty of incompetence so gross it borders on the criminal. And the former CEO and vice-chairman, Ricardo Espírito Santo Salgardo – a member of the Espírito Santo family – has been arrested on suspicion of money laundering and tax evasion. But I suspect he has done more than that: he was also chairman of ESFG, which – as will become apparent shortly – systematically drained the bank and its other subsidiaries. If he didn't know what was going on, he was incompetent: if he did, then he was a party to corruption and fraud on a simply massive scale. Exactly how massive is not yet clear. But I think we are talking billions of Euros."

http://www.pieria.co.uk/articles/how_to_rip_off_a_bank_esprito_santo_style

Why Europe Needs Two Euros, Not One

"As the Eurozone cautiously implements stabilising reforms, Germany is forced to go further with concessions than it would prefer. This column suggests that it would be beneficial for discontented members to consider the formation of a second monetary union. The second euro can be constructed better than the first, bringing the discontented members exchange-rate adjustments relative to Germany, and avoiding competitive devaluations."

"A repeated question about the Eurozone is whether the members form an optimal currency area. But another question – which is actually closer to Mundell’s original contribution (Mundell 1961) – is whether the right number of currencies in the Eurozone is as high as 18, the number of member countries in the system. If the right number is neither 1 nor 18, then 2 may be far, far better than either extreme.

Let me begin by recalling the reasons why 18 would be too many. First, some of the members are probably small enough to have no scope for using monetary or exchange rate policy as a tool of economic stabilisation over the business cycle (McKinnon 1963). Next, the 18 members do form an economically integrated group of geographical neighbours, and therefore their mutual efforts to use monetary and exchange rate policy to their advantage could easily lead them to enter into non-cooperative games with costly Nash consequences. Finally, national monetary policy can mean Treasury-dominated monetary policy, which can lead to very poor outcomes apart from strategic games with any foreigners, near and far."

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/07/europe-needs-two-euros-one.html

How Poland Came to Be a Major EU Power

"Faced with these developments, Warsaw has learned that it can exert influence by bridging differences between Paris, London, and Berlin. Poland is still a balancing power, but not one at the Big Three’s disposal.

Moreover, Poland’s success in this role is fueling speculation that any further breakdown in relations between France, Germany, and the UK will allow it to emerge as a partner to one of the Big Three—or even as a leader in its own right."

"Yet the biggest challenge for Poland now is to articulate more clearly what it wants. Other states are tired of hearing that it is an emerging power within the bloc. They want to know what this new power expects. In this sense, Warsaw has been a victim of its own rapid ascent, and must scramble to develop a rationale for its new status."

http://carnegieeurope.eu/strategiceurope/?fa=51958

Dark-pool trading reaches record levels in Europe

"European share trading taking place in anonymous, off-exchange venues known as "dark pools" reached its highest-ever level in July, amid lower volatility and a growing proliferation of high-frequency trading on the platforms.

About 10.3% of all European equities trading last month took place on these venues, according to data from Thomson Reuters. (...)

Dark pools do not display prices to the market, and allow investors to place orders anonymously to help minimise market impact. Trading often shifts to the venues in quieter periods, when institutions have increased confidence in trading away from exchanges or 'lit' markets."

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/dark-pool-trading-reaches-record-levels-in-europe-2013-08-12

Polskie banki zmiażdżą konkurencję w regionie?

"Wpadł mi w ręce doroczny raport firmy Inteliace o największych bankach naszego regionu Europy - od Estonii, Łotwy i Litwy, poprzez Polskę, jej sąsiadów południowych i kraje bałkańskie, aż po Macedonię i Albanię. (...) Nasze instytucje finansowe są tu gwiazdami świecącym i najjaśniej. O ile aktywa wszystkich banków regionu wzrosły o 4,7% i sięgają 1,04 biliona euro, o tyle polskie banki powiększyły się o 12,9% i w sumie są warte 331 mld euro. (...)
Choć banki w Europie Środkowej stale nabierają masy, to w porównaniu z konkurentami z Zachodu wciąż jesteśmy ubogimi krewnymi. Aktywa wszystkich 200 największych banków w Europie Środkowej to dziś mniej więcej tyle, ile aktywów ma jeden tylko duży bank zachodnioeuropejski - majątkiem ok. biliona euro zarządza np. holenderska grupa ING, czy włoski UniCredit. A największe banki na kontynencie, takie jak Deutsche Bank, czy BNP Paribas to molochy, z których każdy z osobna ma dwa razy tyle aktywów, co wszystkie banki środkowoeuropejskie razem wzięte. "

http://samcik.blox.pl/2013/07/Polskie-bankow-miazdza-konkurencje-w-regionie.html

Europe unhinged

"To recap, before 2008 the United States operated like a huge vacuum cleaner sucking into its territory a disproportionate volume of the net exports as well as the profits of the Rest of the World. This surplus recycling mechanism was essential to the maintenance of the Eurozone’s faulty edifice. Once it vanished from the scene, the European common currency area would either be re-designed or it would enter a long, painful period of disintegration. An unwillingness by the surplus countries to accept that, in the post-2008 world, some other form of surplus recycling is necessary (and that some of their own surpluses must also be subject to such recycling) is the reason why Europe is looking like a case of alchemy-in-reverse: for whereas the alchemist strove to turn lead into gold, Europe’s reverse alchemists began with gold (an integration project that was the pride of its elites), but will soon end up with the institutional equivalent of lead. Unless, of course, a modicum of rationality sips into the collective mind of Europe’s hapless leaders before the tectonic plates shift irreversibly against a common currency that is now dividing proud European nations."

http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2013/06/23/europe-unhinged-article-in-the-european-financial-review/

The Death of Direct Bank Re-capitalisation: Europe’s (newest) day of shame

 "When a bank needs capital injections, the first thing that happens is that the national government provides the capital needed to raise the bank’s minimum capital ratio (T1) to 4.5% of its assets. After that, a sequence of haircuts must follow. First to be haircut are the shareholders and bondholders and then come the uninsured depositors (i.e. the Cyprus model is enacted). Beyond that, the ESM and the national government pout more money in the bank, with the latter participating at a rate of 20%, which can later be reduced to 10%. (...)

Mr Olli Rehn, the EU’s economic overlord, has said it himself, in describing this scheme as an attempt not to decouple the two crises but, rather, to “dilute the link” between them. It is like telling a hanging man that you will not cut the rope choking him but that you will remove a couple of layers of string from it."

http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2013/06/21/the-death-of-direct-bank-re-capitalisation-europes-newest-day-of-shame/

Cyprus’ Stability Levy: Another sad euphemism

"What was astonishing is that, while the peoples of Europe are sick and tired of the gross inequities and regressivity of austerity-fuelled bailouts, they did not set a threshold below which poorer depositors would be untouched. And that they left unaffected the banks’ bondholders (even though the sums involved in these bonds were small, it was utterly unprincipled to spare them). I have no doubt that this decision will haunt them/us for decades."

http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2013/03/17/cyprus-stability-levy-another-sad-euphemism/

Europe needs a hegemonic Germany

Ciekawe rozważania o roli Niemiec w Europie w najbliższym okresie.

Should Germany then try to emulate America? Germany does not have the capacity to do what the United States accomplished from 1980 to 2008; that is, to operate as a gigantic vacuum cleaner sucking into its territory other nations’ net exports, at the cost of ever expanding deficits. Nor should German taxpayers be expected to reflate the bubbles that burst in 2008 (in their own banks, in and around the Greek state, in Irish and Spanish real estate markets etc.). Burst bubbles should be allowed to remain… burst. But meanwhile a hegemonic Germany would find ways to channel the huge pools of stagnant savings into productive investments in the Periphery where they shall produce the incomes that must pay down debts and maintain the level of intra-European demand German companies need to remain competitive both within and without Europe.

http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2013/02/22/europe-needs-a-hegemonic-germany/

The Eurozone after the November Eurogroup ‘Greek Deal'

Autor dość kompleksowo opisuje kryzys w Europie. Myślę, ze to dobra kompilacja aby wszystko sobie usystematyzować. 

Pobierz tutaj: http://www.bruegel.org/download/parent/755-the-euro-crisis-ten-roots-but-fewer-solutions/file/1621-the-euro-crisis-ten-roots-but-fewer-solutions/