Yesterday, the European Central Bank, in a swift move, reduced its basic interest rate to 0.25% from 0.5%. The decision was taken by the Governing Council of the bank, in its regular meeting which takes place on the first Thursday of every month. This decision has reportedly taken the capital markets by surprise, but this […]ECB offers cheaper money despite reactions from Germany
November 8, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Yesterday, the European Central Bank, in a swift move, reduced its basic interest rate to 0.25% from 0.5%. The decision was taken by the Governing Council of the bank, in its regular meeting which takes place on the first Thursday of every month. This decision has reportedly taken the capital markets by surprise, but this […]ECB doesn’t dare touch Eurozone’s big banks
November 5, 2013 by Leave a Comment
While the whole world knows that the Eurozone banks are very short on truly own capital and their overall leverage ratio is less than 3%, the European Central Bank avoids analysing in detail the exact magnitude of this crucial indicator. In its Banking Structure Report, which was published yesterday covering the period 2008-2012 and the […]Financiers can turn the world into a dirty and dangerous place
November 2, 2013 by 1 Comment
Despite the fact that the civil society is fed up with the absolute indifference of the financial sector about what happens in the real economy, the western political elites continue to nurture the insatiable appetite of the banking system for more book profits. In view of that, the European Economic and Social Committee issued yesterday […]Banks promise easing of credit conditions in support of the real economy
October 31, 2013 by Leave a Comment
According to European Central Bank’s quarterly bank lending survey, euro area lenders responded that during the fourth quarter of 2013 they plan a marked easing of credit standards on loans to enterprises (-5% after +5%), “which is the first such a positive expectation on record since the fourth quarter of 2009”. The ECB says that […]ECB’s first flight in Eurozone’s banking universe will be just a reconnaissance
October 30, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The European Central Bank, in view of its new role as single supervisory authority of Eurozone’s banking system, a task that will officially commence in November 2014, is now testing the grounds of this real banking constellation, which comprises a round number of 6000 banks. The ECB will undertake with its own proper mechanism the […]Eurozone economy desperately needs internally driven growth
October 29, 2013 by Leave a Comment
With economic growth in Eurozone proving to be weak, uncertain and widely varying between member states, government spending has become the only possible source of a much hoped for resumption of economic activities. On the other hand, stock exchanges have gained a lot since the beginning of the year, in a way that is not […]ECB embarks on the risky trip to Eurozone banking universe
October 23, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) of Eurozone banks has completed its cycle of approvals by all EU institutions and comes into force as from next month. After one year from now, that is as from November 2014, the European Central Bank will be responsible for the health of Eurozone’s banking system. Under the provisions of […]EU Banks still get subsidies from impoverished citizens
October 22, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Five years after the melt down of the western financial system, triggered by the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, and the European taxpayers still pay the price. According to European Commission’s estimates the cost of government (aka taxpayer and all citizens) support to failing banks in Eurozone reached €4.5 trillion during the first […]What do Europeans believe about the crisis and the possible way out?
October 21, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Despite the falling level of citizens’ confidence in EU institutions during the past few years from 55% in 2007 to 44% in 2012, a recent Eurobarometer survey found that respondents insist that the EU is best placed to regulate banks, with 54% of the respondents supporting this view. This is a direct proof that Europeans […]The Parliament paves the way for the creation of the European Banking Union
October 18, 2013 by 2 Comments
Today, 18 October, is the last day for MEPs to table their amendments with the Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Committee, in the process of formulating the legislature’s proposal for an EU mechanism to sort out troubled banks. This is the much debated bank resolution and recovery mechanism and fund. The Committee vote is planned for […]G20: Less growth, more austerity for developing countries
October 14, 2013 by Leave a Comment
IMF – World Bank’s annual meetings and the G20 Finance ministers and central bank governors gathering in Washington D.C. this weekend proved two things; first that the world is more divided now, in the aftermath of the financial crisis and second and more important that the labouring millions of the globe in developing and […]IMF asks Europe to decide on bank resolutions and the Greek Gordian knot
October 12, 2013 by Leave a Comment
In view of the fast deteriorating relations between the European Union and the International Monetary Fund over the needed measures to confront the Greek Gordian knot and Eurozone’s banking sector problems, a culmination is expected in a few days. The exchanges between the two sides, recorded this week are indicative of the worsening climate over […]IMF to teach Germany a Greek lesson
October 11, 2013 by Leave a Comment
International Monetary Fund managing director Christine Lagarde, in a Press conference held yesterday in Washington, ahead of the 2013 annual meetings of the World Bank and IMF set to take place this weekend, chose to directly confront Germany over the Greek Gordian knot. She repeated three times that the Greece’s Eurozone partners have reiterated on […]Lagarde: Keep feeding the banks cut down wages and food subsidies
October 7, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Lagarde to the world: Keep feeding the banks with zero interest rate cost money, further trim down workers’ rights in the developed world and reduce subsidies on foodstuffs and utilities in developing countries. This was in short what the managing director of IMF had to say, ahead of the 2013 World Bank-IMF Annual Meetings, when […]More capital and liquidity for the banks
October 4, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Benoît Cœuré, a Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, after taking care of banks’ recapitalisation needs last week using taxpayers money, embarked yesterday in a new adventure to convince us all, that central banks with their unlimited liquidity supply to banks, do not help them exploit hard-working labourers and small and […]The banks want now free capital from taxpayers
September 30, 2013 by 1 Comment
Benoît Cœuré, a Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, delivered a speech today on “The implications of bail-in rules for bank activity and stability”. This was the opening speech at conference on “Financing the recovery after the crisis – the roles of bank profitability, stability and regulation”, staged by Milan’s Bocconi […]Bank resolutions and recapitalisations by the ESM may end up politically swayed
September 25, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Klaus Regling, the Managing Director of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), speaking yesterday at the European Parliament, when pressed by legislators, accepted that the wealthy ESM under conditions could function as a backstop and finance jointly with other sources, euro area bank resolutions and recapitalisations. Regling did concede that he was “open to considering other […]Germany: A grand coalition may trouble employers and bankers
September 25, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The very likely formation of a grand coalition government in Germany, led by the CDU-CSU Christian democrats, under Chancellor Angela Merkel and comprising the SPD socialists, will not be without tangible results in at least two crucial fronts. The wages of Germany’s hard working millions and the long overdue rearrangement of Eurozone’s banking system, are […]The EU lets the bankers go on rigging the benchmarks
September 19, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The European Commission adopted yesterday additional “measures to restore confidence in benchmarks following Libor and Euribor scandals”. The new draft legislation complements the political agreement on Market Abuse Regulation proposed by the Commission last July and endorsed by the Parliament and the Council. Benchmark setting is not confined only to interest rates like Libor and […]Germany may prove right rejecting Commission’s bank resolution scheme
September 17, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Commissioner Michel Barnier, responsible for financial services, had a rough time yesterday at the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee (ECON) of the European Parliament, when he told the legislators that the Commission will press ahead with its proposal about the creation under its own roof of the Single Resolution Mechanism (SRM) for Eurozone’s failing banks. […]IMF’s Lagarde to Peoples of the world: You have to work more for the banks!
September 12, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, delivered a speech recently during this year’s Jackson Hole Symposium, praising the Unconventional Monetary Policies (UMP) followed by the central banks to save the world from a great depression, similar to the one of 1929. The risk was real as Lagarde noted but she didn’t […]OECD: Mind the financial gap that lies ahead
September 10, 2013 by 1 Comment
A rather disappointing picture of the world economy drew OECD Deputy Chief Economist Jorgen Elmeskov last week, when he said that “The gradual pick-up in momentum in the advanced economies is encouraging but a sustainable recovery is not yet firmly established. Major risks remain”. If it was not for China’s predicted growth during the last […]Commission’s feeble response to financial benchmarks fraud
September 9, 2013 by 1 Comment
On Wednesday 18 September the European Commission is expected to propose a draft legislation on financial benchmarks to protect their setting from fraud and collusion. The stakes are so big that surpass the wildest imagination. For example Libor, the London market interest rate benchmark, is used as a base for interest rates settlements all over […]Draghi reserved about Eurozone’s growth prospects
September 6, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Yesterday, Mario Draghi, President of the European Central Bank, during the Press conference following the meeting of the Governing Council, in answering a journalist’s question appeared quite reserved about Eurozone’s growth prospects. Despite the fact that ECB’s staff projections for 2013 have been revised upwards, estimates for 2014 growth potential are now downgraded. Not to […]The EU Commission lets money market funds continue the unholy game of banks
September 5, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The European Commission adopted yesterday a proposal for measures on shadow banking introducing new but quite loose and thus ineffective rules and controls for money market funds (MMFs). This is a parallel financial system created by the major banks in order to avoid even the few controls and restrictions that the official banking system has […]The untold story of who caused and who pays for the economic crisis
August 30, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Olli Rehn, Vice-President of the EU Commission responsible for the economy and euro and Yves Mersch, member of the executive board of the European Central Bank both delivered speeches yesterday in the European Forum Alpbach 2013, set in the breathtaking Alpine landscape. A very convenient excuse for an escape to Tirol. The European Forum Alpbach […]ECB will be the catalyst of Eurozone’s reunification
August 28, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Today Thursday the new governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, is expected to confirm from Nottingham, a historic city in east Midlands, that the central bank of Britain is not to raise its basic interest rate from the currently very low level of 0.5%, “until the Labour Force Survey headline measure of the […]Convincing the Germans to pay also for the unification of Eurozone
August 27, 2013 by Leave a Comment
What Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, said about the uncertainties that an eventual new hair-cut of the Greek state debt may trigger doesn’t exclude this possibility. She stressed that it may set off a “domino effect of uncertainty” and scare off possible investors. But the country has already performed a voluntary hair-cut on the privately […]All talk but no action against fraudulent bankers
August 26, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The European Commission plans to propose on Wednesday 18 September draft legislation against the fraudulent setting and use of financial benchmarks like Euribor, Libor and the Baltic Indices. This comes on top of investigations launched recently in London, New York even in Brussels, where bankers are being criminally prosecuted, and thirteen giant western investment banking […]Eurozone banks are unable to support real economy’s dawning growth
August 14, 2013 by 1 Comment
Industrial production in the European Union is definitively in a virtuous path as statistical data confirm business managers’ assessment, that their order books are as full as they have never been in the past. The same is true for industrial production. According to a press release published yesterday by Eurostat – the EU statistical service […]Eurozone: Retail sales betray economic frailty
August 7, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Retail sales are an infallible measurement of the internal dynamism or its absence in every economy. They are tightly associated with consumption which is by far the largest component of Gross Domestic Product, investments and exports accounting for the rest of it. For quite some time now retail trade dynamism in Eurozone is practically non-existent […]Commission caps charges on card and Internet payments and enforces competition
July 26, 2013 by Leave a Comment
It was high time that the European Commission tried to arrest the over-exploitation of European consumers by a handful of banks and credit card providers. This week Joaquín Almunia, Commission’s Vice President responsible for competition policy, and Michel Barnier, EU Commissioner in charge of internal market and services presented one draft regulation and one directive amendment, […]Summer pause gives time to rethink Eurozone’s problems
July 24, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The United States Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew on his way back to Washington from the G20 meeting in Moscow made a stop-over in Athens on Monday to meet the Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras. Probably this is not major news. However, what Lew said under the Acropolis about his encounter with the German […]
