If Grigori Marchenko, CEO of Halyk Savings Bank but also former central bank governor of Kazakhstan and the architect of its much admired regulatory framework for banks, were in charge of the US Federal Reserve, what a different scenario the financial world would find itself in now.
Look at the past 20 years, he says, citing the bail-out of Continental Illinois in the 1980s, the de facto bail-out of banks involved in the Latin American debt crisis, the bail-out of hedge fund long-term capital management and the Fed’s pumping liquidity into the system after the internet bubble burst in 2000. “If something happens, those guys who have the wrong strategies get bailed out with taxpayers’ money. It is not fair,” he says, with disapproval and a shake of his bearded face, noting that policymakers are “worrying more about systemic risk and less about moral hazard.”
