Capital Smorgasbord

Questions are being asked about the level of capital held by banks, after the financial crisis forced governments across the world to make emergency capital injections. Will this change what qualifies as tier-one and tier-two capital? By Duncan Wood

In a financial crisis, capital is king - but that capital can be of questionable quality, and vary from country to country. The result is confusion. Initially reassured by the state-backed recapitalisation of the banking industry, markets have since begun to look more carefully at the support being provided. What they have found is a wide variety of capital types, many of which bend existing