UK Banks still in distress
April 21st, 2008Following on from their generous bail out of Northern Rock, the UK Government, otherwise know as the taxpayer, has opened its arms to any old piece of paper banks have sitting around on their balance sheet.
Or to be more accurate, the Bank of England will accept mortgage backed securities in return for government bonds. Nice trade if you cant get it. The amounts mentioned are 50 to 200bln pounds (where the hell is my pound key?) but basically it’s a free for all.
Now we can expect to see banks reaching for the refinancing button in order to take advantage of this. RBS has already put its hand up for 10 to 12bln of fresh capital plus a 6bln write down.
Ok so its just more mess. The markets may rally on this hoping it can help clear the looming crisis in the mortgage market but the numbers are really starting to mount up and this is just very bad news indeed.
The key issue here is the capital adequacy of the banking system. It’s proven to be the achilles heel which is why the authorities have had no option but to underwrite the system.
Given this exposure of the fragility of the banking system it is time to ask questions about capital adequacy and the way banks are regulated and allowed to operate.
Tags: bank of england, banking, central banks, credit, credit crunch, debt, derivatives, financial crisis, intervention, markets, money reform, parliament