Central banks
Bernanke: Public-private partnership required to value toxic assets
The involvement of both the public and private sectors is essential to accurately value illiquid assets before public funds are used to remove them from dealer balance sheets, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke claimed yesterday.
EU leaders agree outline of global financial regulation
Daily news headlines
LCH.Clearnet bid sparks conflict-of-interest debate
A proposal by a consortium of major derivatives dealers to acquire London-based clearing house LCH.Clearnet has led to suggestions that banks becoming intimately involved in the clearing process could present a conflict of interest.
CAP details expose transatlantic split on capital
Today's news that the US Treasury and other regulators may compel US banks to raise capital levels puts them even more at odds with UK and European overseers, who have downplayed the need for more capital in recent weeks.
Trichet: Eurozone CCP will help improve oversight
European Central Bank president Jean-Claude Trichet backed a central counterparty (CCP) for clearing credit default swap (CDS) trades in the eurozone today, in a speech that also called for banker compensation to be linked to avoiding excessive leverage.
US Wrap: Reverse convertibles strike back on February’s busiest day
The US market had its busiest day of the month yesterday, waking up a moribund week. The 30-product flurry consisted of 25 Barclays-issued reverse convertible notes.
US Treasury doubles aid to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
The US Treasury is investing another $200 billion in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as part of a fresh effort to prevent a wave of foreclosures.
BoE stability chief calls for stress war games
Banks could be forced to carry out joint stress tests to model the knock-on effects of a single disturbance on the entire financial system, according to the Bank of England's head of financial market stability, Andrew Haldane.
CIC opts for MSCI Barra multi-asset analytics
China Investment Corp (CIC) has signed up to use risk and performance analytics provided by New York-based MSCI Barra, called Barra Analytics, for an undisclosed sum.
A supervisor for Europe?
Editor's blog
Federal Reserve extends liquidity programmes
The Federal Reserve has extended the deadline for its existing liquidity programmes by six months, to October 30, in a sign of continuing strain on financial markets.
A capital offence
In believing that healthy capital reserves would enable banks to weather the credit crisis, lawmakers and banking chiefs neglected one important fact, says Suresh Sankaran of Fiserv IPS-Sendero: that robust capital adequacy ratios do very little to keep…
Legal Spotlight
The ECB has set minimum standards that ABS must meet if issuers are to use the securities as repo-eligible funding. Angus Duncan assesses the impact of these new rules on existing ABS
ABS collateral pools to deteriorate in 2009
Two largest rating agencies predict global economic slowdown will hit loans underlying most asset-backed securities, with consumer loans in UK, Ireland and Spain worst affected
The repo effect
The ability of banks to use securitisation deals as collateral for repo funding from central banks has resulted in larger deals with more esoteric assets. Laurence Neville looks at how this change is affecting the securitisation market as a whole
Headed for a fall
Annuities and deflation
Rife insurance
Markets
Islamic inroads
Cover story