As US concerns over minimum regulatory capital requirements come late in the day, the Basel Committee must seriously consider delaying implementation, says John D Hawke Jr.On September 30 the US bank regulatory agencies announced a revised schedule for the implementation of Basel II, the new capital standards for internationally active banks.
Morgan Stanley’s response to the regulatory overload was a bit different from other Wall Street firms. The bank appointed a special head of regulatory matters to help co-ordinate the regulatory effort. Eric Dinallo, a former deputy of Mr Spitzer, was the man chosen for the job.
Dave DeMuro has been at Lehman Brothers for two decades but nothing could have prepared him for the past few years. “The pace of rule-making is approaching the speed of light,” he says. “The pace of change and level of expectation from regulators have put enormous pressure on compliance personnel. The work is harder, both in terms of hours on the job and stress levels, because the stakes have become so high.”
As they cut back investment bankers’ jobs, Wall Street’s bulge bracket firms strengthened their compliance departments to cope with growing regulation and scrutiny, and the rising salaries have begun to attract staff from regulatory bodies into corporate territory. By Sophie Roell.
As regulation tightens, banks are taking a firm stand. While acknowledging some rules are necessary, they want some room to manoeuvre. Michael Imeson reports. The law of unintended consequences has once more been at work. International regulators, bent on constraining the global financial services industry with ever more laws and rules, have unwittingly helped to bring about the creation of a powerful counterforce, the International Banking Federation (IbFed). Its main purpose: to protect the vital interests of banks around the world from harmful legislative and regulatory action and other threats.The banking industry accepts that much regulation – domestic as well as international – is necessary and, although there is a great deal of regulation that is of borderline use and cumbersome in its approach, they can live with it.