181 posts on "Banks"
October 19, 2020
How Has Post‑Crisis Banking Regulation Affected Hedge Funds and Prime Brokers?
“Arbitrageurs” such as hedge funds play a key role in the efficiency of financial markets. They compare closely related assets, then buy the relatively cheap one and sell the relatively expensive one, thereby driving the prices of the assets closer together. For executing trades and other services, hedge funds rely on prime brokers and broker-dealers. In a previous Liberty Street Economics blog post, we argued that post-crisis changes to regulation and market structure have increased the costs of arbitrage activity, potentially contributing to the persistent deviations in the prices of closely related assets since the 2007–09 financial crisis. In this post, we document how post-crisis changes to bank regulations have affected the relationship between hedge funds and broker-dealers.
Posted at 7:00 am in Bank Capital, Banks, Central Bank, Corporate Finance, Financial Institutions, Financial Markets, Regulation | Permalink
October 5, 2020
The Banking Industry and COVID‑19: Lifeline or Life Support?
By many measures the U.S. banking industry entered 2020 in a robust state. But the widespread outbreak of the COVID-19 virus and the associated economic disruptions have caused unemployment to skyrocket and many businesses to suspend or significantly reduce operations. In this post, we consider the implications of the pandemic for the stability of the banking sector, including the potential impact of dividend suspensions on bank capital ratios and the use of banks’ regulatory capital buffers.
September 30, 2020
Did Too‑Big‑To‑Fail Reforms Work Globally?
Once a bank grows beyond a certain size or becomes too complex and interconnected, investors often perceive that it is “too big to fail” (TBTF), meaning that if the bank were to fail, the government would likely bail it out. Following the global financial crisis (GFC) of 2008, the G20 countries agreed on a set of reforms to eliminate the perception of TBTF, as part of a broader package to enhance financial stability. In June 2020, the Financial Stability Board (FSB; a 68-member international advisory body set up in 2009) published the results of a year-long evaluation of the effectiveness of TBTF reforms. In this post, I discuss the main conclusions of the report—in particular, the finding that implicit funding subsidies to global banks have decreased since the implementation of reforms but remain at levels comparable to the pre-crisis period.
September 28, 2020
COVID‑19 and the Search for Digital Alternatives to Cash
This analysis presents evidence on the impact of COVID-19 on consumer payment behavior, finding acceleration in the use of digital payment technology.
June 30, 2020
Leverage Ratio Arbitrage All Over Again
Leverage limits as a form of capital regulation have a well-known, potential bug: If banks can’t lever returns as desired, they can boost returns on equity by shifting toward riskier, higher yielding assets. That reach for yield is the leverage rule “arbitrage.” But would banks do that? In a previous post, we discussed evidence from our working paper that banks did do just that in response to the new leverage rule that took effect in 2018. This post discusses new findings in our revised paper on when and how banks arbitraged.
June 25, 2020
Insider Networks
Erol and Lee consider the cat-and-mouse game played between financial regulators and those attempting to trade on inside information, including how insiders might form networks in order to circumvent restrictions, and how regulators might cope with insiders’ tactics.
Posted at 7:00 am in Bank Capital, Banks, Central Bank, Financial Institutions, Financial Intermediation, Financial Markets, Regulation | Permalink
June 18, 2020
Bitcoin Is Not a New Type of Money
Bitcoin, and more generally, cryptocurrencies, are often described as a new type of money. In this post, we argue that this is a misconception. Bitcoin may be money, but it is not a new type of money. To see what is truly new about Bitcoin, it is useful to make a distinction between “money,” the asset that is being exchanged, and the “exchange mechanism,” that is, the method or process through which the asset is transferred. Doing so reveals that monies with properties similar to Bitcoin have existed for centuries. However, the ability to make electronic exchanges without a trusted party—a defining characteristic of Bitcoin—is radically new. Bitcoin is not a new class of money, it is a new type of exchange mechanism, and this type of exchange mechanism can support a variety of forms of money as well as other types of assets.
May 19, 2020
The Primary Dealer Credit Facility
On March 17, 2020, the Federal Reserve announced that it would re-establish the Primary Dealer Credit Facility (PDCF) to allow primary dealers to support smooth market functioning and facilitate the availability of credit to businesses and households. The PDCF started offering overnight and term funding with maturities of up to ninety days on March 20. It will be in place for at least six months and may be extended as conditions warrant. In this post, we provide an overview of the PDCF and its usage to date.
Posted at 7:00 am in Bank Capital, Banks, Central Bank, COVID-19 Facilities, Credit, Federal Reserve, Liquidity, Monetary Policy, Pandemic, Systemic Risk | Permalink
April 17, 2020
Treasury Market Liquidity during the COVID‑19 Crisis
A key objective of recent Federal Reserve policy actions is to address the deterioration in financial market functioning. The U.S. Treasury securities market, in particular, has been the subject of Fed and market participants’ concerns, and the venue for some of the Fed’s initiatives. In this post, we evaluate a basic metric of market functioning for Treasury securities—market liquidity—through the first month of the Fed’s extraordinary actions. Our particular focus is on how liquidity in March 2020 compares to that observed over the past fifteen years, a period that includes the 2007-09 financial crisis.
Posted at 12:01 pm in Balance of Payments, Banks, Central Bank, Corporate Finance, Financial Markets, Pandemic | Permalink | Comments (1)
April 8, 2020
How Does Supervision Affect Bank Performance during Downturns?
New research finds that there is a cyclical nature to the benefits of bank supervisory attention: in normal times, the benefits are smaller, but during downturns the more closely supervised banks exhibit better loan performance and lower earnings volatility.
Posted at 7:00 am in Bank Capital, Banks, Crisis, Federal Reserve, Financial Institutions, Recession, Systemic Risk | Permalink
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