Ten U.S. banks that have received assistance with rescue money taxpayers have spent over 16 million dollars for lobbying during the first six months of the year. Money is spent to influence the participants in the debate on financial sector reform in the U.S. The regulatory data show that the ten banks that have received the largest share of state aid in 2008 and 2009 spent a lot to influence the views of members of Congress, representatives of the White House, Treasury, Federal Reserve, and some of the federal agencies involved in designing the new regulatory framework. “I’m not surprised that these banks have spent so much money because I saw every day how it happens,” said Ed Mirtsvinski, director of the US Public Interest Research Group. He said reform of the financial sector have worked over 2000 lobbyists. The new regulatory framework, signed by President Barack Obama in July, with volumes in 2300 pages and outlines new rules for derivative trading, charging and regulation of transactions with debit and credit cards. Many of the new rules laid down by banks as too harsh and cause discontent. The sum of 16.32 million dollars set aside for lobbying during the first half, with 26 percent more than the money allocated to this activity for the same period last year.
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The end of the working week has brought the closure of three U.S. banks. Thus the number of bank failures in the country since the beginning of the year amounted to 86 and is on track to improve last year’s record of 140 closed financial institutions – the highest number since 1992. Federal deposit insurance corporation in (FDIC) has closed banks in the states of Florida and New Mexico, Georgia, as buyers are financial institutions by the states. The three failure will cost the FDIC 284,6 million dollars. “The growing problems in commercial property and the ongoing crisis in housing loans will cause many bankruptcies,” said Walter Mix, managing director at financial consulting firm LECG LLC. Over the next three and a half years the bank will claim the bankruptcy 60 billion dollar fund to FDIC, said by the corporation on 22nd June. Fund out of deficit in third quarter of last year. Florida-based Peninsula Bank was purchased by Premier American Bank, owned by Bond Street Holdings LLC. January Holding buy two troubled banks. First National Bank of Jordan was been sold by the FDIC of Savannah Bank, a High Desert State Bank in New Mexico – the First American Bank. In the first quarter of this year the list of troubled banks FDIC counts 775 institutions with assets of 431 billion.
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The Swiss bank UBS came first profit since Oswald Gryubel assumed leadership of the company a year ago. Net profit for the financial institution for the fourth quarter of 2009 amounted to 1.205 billion Swiss francs (1.1 billion), Reuters reported. This is a significant improvement compared to the same period in 2008 when the bank had a loss of 9.58 billion francs. The improvement is partly due to a tax credit of 480 million Swiss francs, and the reduction of bonuses. However, under pressure from the continuing effects of the global financial crisis led to tax evasion cases in the United States and pressure from other countries for violation of banking secrecy to disclosure of tax crimes, UBS continues to lose the trust of its customers. “We are sure that the measures we took for withdrawal of capital from the bank’s clients are effective, but in the immediate future we expect to continue to draw,” says Oswald Gryubel CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors Vilidzhar Kasper in a letter to investors.
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The legendary investor George Soros called from Davos to radically reduce the size of banks that are too big to be allowed to fail transmitted BBC. At the World Economic Forum, he spoke in support of U.S. President Barack Obama in his attempts to separate commercial and investment banking. According to him, however, even after such action, most investment banks will still remain too large to fail. To control these banks, all major economies need to rally around strict rules to limit the risk – how much money banks can borrow to invest, “said billionaire. He acknowledges that it will be difficult to determine the exact ceiling on leverage, but that governments have enough time to develop a global regulatory framework. George Soros called the current economic crisis “super bubble” which was created by the system itself, and was the culmination of a series of smaller balloons in the last 25 years, and unsuccessful attempts to remove them. They add balloons were caused by facilitated credit and high financial leverage. As regulators and bankers were wrongly believed that markets are efficient, Soros continued, and were blinded by ideology that they should always be less regulated. And when the bubble burst, governments and regulators to further worsen the situation by reducing interest rates make money cheaper and thus to the mortgage crisis in the United States, which rocked the entire financial system.
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The Mayor of London Boris Johnson warned the bankers to stay in the City of London, warning that the temptation to move to Switzerland to them face unexpected risks, officials said. “I am told that there are some parts of the canton of Bern, where men are not allowed to urinate made after 10 o’clock at night so as not to disturb their neighbors,” Johnson told a reception organized by the Japanese investment bank Nomura in the ski resort of Davos, which is currently being held traditional World Economic Forum. His comments in the room full of bankers, were made on the news that some hedge funds and investment bankers leave London and move to Switzerland to avoid the EU regulations or imposed in the UK tax revenue over a specified amount and on bonuses. “Time is the master of the universe to show that they can be both servants of society,” said Johnson, a former journalist and a frequent guest on satirical TV shows.
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JPMorgan Chase will launch its global branch banking, which will offer commercial banking multinational corporations transmit Financial Times. This will instruct the bank alongside Citigroup and HSBC. From JPMorgan plans to invest more than $ 100 million in commercial banking division, which will consist of 300 people. The activity will initially be focused on emerging economies such as China, India and Brazil reveals Financial Times. JPMorgan is the aim of reducing their dependence on the weak U.S. economy and to benefit from the problems of Citigroup, have shared the bank’s executives told the newspaper.
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With remarkable allocation of $ 11.8 billion and 70 transactions in 2009 (an increase of 118 percent compared to $ 5.4 billion and 58 transactions in 2008), BNP Paribas Corporate and Investment Banking is Number 1 loans for trade financing, coverage of the export credit agency. The assessment is based in New York consulting firm Dealogic, communicated by the Bulgarian office of BNP Paribas. From there, comment, is that was very difficult year this is a great achievement of the teams and the result of an enormous number of significant transactions during the year. The Bank is the undisputed world leader with a market share of 30%. According to Dealogic world market of loans for trade financing, coverage of the export credit agency, has increased by 29 percent per year, reaching $ 38.6 billion in 2009. BNP Paribas is present in Bulgaria since 1994 in the present moment more with your credit and life insurance company “Cardiff” and for Bulgaria’s leading consumer finance company BNP Paribas Personal Finance. ”
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