Financial Times (March 10)
“Policymakers at the Bank of Japan are tackling a series of thorny policy debates as they confront the practicalities of raising interest rates for the first time since the summer of 2006.” Despite signaling the “unprecedented era of cheap money” could end with a rate increase as early as March, the BoJ “still faces a number of challenging decisions about how to leave negative rates behind without causing turmoil for global markets and Japanese lenders.”
Tags: 2006, BOJ, Cheap money, Confront, Global markets, Japan, Lenders, March, Negative rates, Policy debates, Policymakers, Practicalities, Thorny, Turmoil, Unprecedented era
Reuters (December 29)
“Big bank mergers are no longer taboo. Ever since the 2008 crisis bosses have considered consolidation between large lenders unworkable, while regulators deemed it undesirable. UBS (UBSG.S) Chief Executive Sergio Ermotti may change that if he safely and profitably absorbs local rival Credit Suisse.”
Tags: 2008 crisis, Big bank, Consolidation, Credit Suisse, Ermotti, Lenders, Mergers, Profitably, Regulators, Taboo, UBS, Undesirable, Unworkable
Bloomberg (June 12)
“The owners of the Westfield San Francisco Centre mall are giving up the property to lenders, adding to deepening real estate pain in a city struggling to bring back workers and tourists after the pandemic.” Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield and Brookfield Corp. will default on $558 million in remaining debt. “San Francisco has been among the hardest-hit cities since the pandemic as office vacancies soar, retail vacancies rise and concerns about safety deter visitors.”
Tags: Brookfield, Cities, Debt, Default, Hardest-hit, Lenders, Mall, Office, Pain, Pandemic, Real estate, Retail, Safety, San Francisco, Struggling, Tourists, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, Vacancies, Workers
American Banker (November 9)
“Lenders made it harder in the third quarter for both consumers and businesses to access credit,” and this trend looks likely to continue. “If the U.S. economy falls into a recession, more than 80% of banks said they would ‘somewhat’ or ‘substantially’ tighten lending standards for credit cards and loans backed by commercial real estate. More than 70% of banks said they would do the same for auto, commercial and industrial and residential real estate loans.”
Tags: Access, Auto, Banks, Businesses, Commercial, Consumers, Credit, Credit cards, Economy, Industrial, Lenders, Lending standards, Loans, Real estate, Recession, Tighten, U.S.
Bloomberg (August 19)
“The US mortgage industry is seeing its first lenders go out of business after a sudden spike in lending rates, and the wave of failures that’s coming could be the worst since the housing bubble burst about 15 years ago.” Though a “systemic meltdown” is not expected, market watchers still anticipate “a string of bankruptcies broad enough to trigger a spike in layoffs in an industry that employs hundreds of thousands of workers, and potentially an increase in some lending rates.”
Tags: Bankruptcies, Failures, Housing bubble, Industry, Layoffs, Lenders, Market, Mortgage, Rates, Spike, Systemic meltdown, U.S.
Forbes (July 11)
“Bitcoin bulls beware: Wall Street expects the cryptocurrency’s crash to get a whole lot worse. The token is more likely to tumble to $10,000, cutting its value roughly in half, than it is to rally back to $30,000,” according to survey of 950 investors. This “lopsided prediction underscores how bearish investors have become. The crypto industry has been rocked by troubled lenders, collapsed currencies, and an end to the easy money policies of the pandemic that fueled a speculative frenzy in financial markets.”
Tags: Bearish, Bitcoin, Bulls, Crash, Cryptocurrency, Currencies, Easy money, Financial markets, Investors, Lenders, Pandemic, Prediction, Rally, Speculative frenzy, Survey, Troubled, Wall Street
New York Times (March 21)
“The lessons of the last financial crisis are clear. Less clear is whether regulators have the tools and the willingness to apply what they have learned to new circumstances and new threats.” The surge of money from China into the U.S. “far outpaced growth in the overall economy last year, a sign that too much money may be chasing too few good opportunities and that lenders may be compromising standards.” There are clear reasons for concern. “The system is still too opaque, and resistance to regulation remains fierce.”
Tags: China, Financial Crisis, Growth, Lenders, Opaque, Opportunities, Regulators, Resistance, Standards, Threats, U.S.
Euromoney (November Issue)
Despite the relative success of recent stress tests, “the financial sector remains at the core of the eurozone’s economic woes. Weak corporates and overleveraged households continue to weigh on bank balance sheets and lenders across the region remain vulnerable to write-downs.” The “flimsy” stress tests failed to “address the underlying problems of bad credit that slow growth and lowflation are compounding…. The euro banking crisis remains.”
Tags: Bad credit, Balance sheets, Economic woes, Euro banking crisis, Financial sector, Households, Lenders, Lowflation, Overleveraged, Stress tests, Write-downs
New York Times (August 7)
The “government rescue of one of Portugal’s largest lenders” is another example of “regulatory failure.” Banco Espírito Santo had succeeded in a system that made “it easy for banks to look good and hide their problems.” As the European Central Bank (ECB) moves to assume supervision for some of Europe’s largest banks later this year, it will have to show that it really is serious. “Europe’s economy will not recover until its banking system is truly healthy.”
Tags: Banco Espírito Santo, Banks, ECB, Economy, Europe, Government, Lenders, Portugal, Recover, Regulatory failure, Rescue
Bloomberg (July 15)
“Cross-border private capital is so readily available for good emerging-market borrowers that multilateral lenders such as the World Bank are having to explain why they’re needed any longer. To justify their existence, they’re trying to recast themselves as repositories of development expertise.” With the BRICS poised to create their own new currency reserve fund and development bank, the proposed institutions look anachronistic. The BRICS just “don’t need their own bank.”
Tags: Borrowers, BRICS, Capital, Cross-border, Currency reserve fund, Development bank, Emerging market, Lenders, World Bank
