Safe and sound banking in developing countries : we're not in Kansas anymore

Drawing on earlier work, the author reviews some of the salient facts about the boom in banking busts in developing countries. He then reviews policy responses taken by authorities in some of the"early"crisis countries, and considers a wider menu of responses -in particular the currently popular suggestion that promulgating an International Banking Standard would significantly improve the safety and soundness of banking systems in developing countries. Such a standard is not without appeal, but other approaches are probably necessary in developing countries where risks are usually greater, financial institutions are less diversified, markets are less transparent, supervision is weak, and other ingredients critical to sound banking are either missing or scarcer than in industrial countries. The author calls for a multi-pillar approach to safe and sound banking, one that would: (1) focus attention on factors that restrict banks'ability and willingness to diversify risk; and (2) Give three key groups -owners (and managers), the market (including uninsured debtholders and other possible co-owners), and supervisors- more incentive and ability to monitor banks and ensure their prudent corporate governance.Banks&Banking Reform,Labor Policies,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,Financial Intermediation,Banks&Banking Reform,Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,Financial Intermediation,Economic Theory&Research,Settlement of Investment Disputes

Banking on crises : expensive lessons from recent financial crises

Caprio summarizes both basic and proximate factors behind financial crises, arguing that although a variety of factors contribute to the crises, the basic causes are information and incentive problems. Caprio develops a scoring system for the broad regulatory environment for a dozen Asian and Latin American financial systems in 1997. The Asian economies in crises score the lowest. Economies with the highest scores felt relatively little impact from the crises. This paper will address these issues. Section II will summarize briefly the voluminous literature on proximate and more distant causes of crises. Although both micro and macro factors are associated with crises, beyond lobbying for changes in the international financial system, national authorities are left with following sound macro policies, improving financial sector infrastructure, and upgrading regulation and supervision as mean of minimizing the likelihood and costs of financial crises. Is there a payoff to improving the regulatory framework? Tentative evidence presented in section III, which compares the broad regulatory environment in 12 selected Asian and Latin American countries, suggests that the answer is affirmative. This comparison both reveals how some countries have been progressing, and can help as a guide, indicating weak areas of regulation that should be a target for further improvement. Generally, those countries that have higher scores on their regulatory systemsappear to have weathered the latest crisis well, suggesting that improving the regulatory environment, broadly interpreted, should be a goal for countries that have not thus far made much headway in this area. A plausible hypothesis then is that authorities are learning -- at great cost - - from the last 2 decades of crises and are moving to raise the cost or otherwise tighten the safety net supporting the banking sector. Section IV concludes with unresolved issues and suggestions for future research.Financial Intermediation,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Labor Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,Banks&Banking Reform,Financial Intermediation,Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research

Bank regulation : the case of the missing model

Financial reform of one type or another has been increasingly popular since the early 1970s, but disappointment with the fruits of reform has been common. Reformers in Africa and in transitional economies have been especially disappointed, perhaps because of their high expectations. Reform may also disappoint partly because of perverse sequencing. Often the more visible aspects of reform (such as complete deregulation of interest rates, recapitalization of banks, and more recently the creation of stock exchanges) are pursued before basic financial infrastructure (including auditing, accounting, and legal systems and basic regulations) are established. The author focuses here on regulatory options in banking. He argues that for reform to succeed and for financial systems to remain stable, there must be a regulatory framework that encourages prudent behavior and is attuned to both institutions and the structure of the economy. Bank failure may reflect poor management, but poor management in turn reflects regulation that is not"incentive compatible."The author reviews options that would align bankers'incentives with society's preferences for safe and sound banking. Adopting a framework that rewards prudent risk-taking will produce a more stable banking system. And because participants in the financial system - both individuals and organizations - take time to adjust to changes in incentives, it is important to begin reshaping the regulatory environment early in the reform process, at the same time as other measures are being taken to develop institutions.Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Banks&Banking Reform,Financial Intermediation,Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Financial Intermediation,Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,Environmental Economics&Policies,Insurance&Risk Mitigation

Safe and sound banking : a role for countercyclical regulatory requirements ?

Most explanations of the crisis of 2007-2009 emphasize the role of the preceding boom in real estate and asset markets in a variety of advanced countries. As a result, an idea that is gaining support among various groups is how to make Basel II or any regulatory regime less pro-cyclical. This paper addresses the rationale for and likely contribution of such policies. Making provisioning (or capital) requirements countercyclical is one way potentially to address pro-cyclicality, and accordingly it looks at the efforts of the authorities in Spain and Colombia, two countries in which countercyclical provisioning has been tried, to see what the track record has been. As explained there, these experiments have been at best too recent and limited to put much weight on them, but they are much less favorable for supporting this practice than is commonly admitted. The paper then addresses concerns and implementation issues with countercyclical capital or provisioning requirements, including why their impact might be expected to be limited, and concludes with recommendations for developing country officials who want to learn how to make their financial systems less exposed to crises.Banks&Banking Reform,Access to Finance,Financial Intermediation,Debt Markets,Emerging Markets

Financial history : lessons of the past for reformers of the present

Among the lessons financial history offers: Macroeconomic stability - low inflation and sound public finance - is important for creating the right incentives for banks and for facilitating the development of securities markets. High inflation and large fiscal deficits distort economic behavior in favor of short-term speculative projects conducive to sustainable economic development. Central bank independence may contribute to economic stability. One way to increase it is by lengthening the term of central bank governors. There must be incentives for bank owners to behave prudently - a requirement that they have capital commensurate with the risks they assume, for example. Unlimited liability and double liability limits may be less feasible now than in the past, but banks in developing countries that face higher risks should maintain higher capital ratios than banks in the more advanced OECD countries. Effective supervision is also essential. Banks run into solvency problems because they fail to diversify - often because of regulatory (especially geographic) restrictions, but also because of excessive connected lending or genuine mistakes. Regulators must ensure that banks diversify their risks, which means ending geographic or sectoral restrictions (including prohibitions against holding foreign assets) and restricting connected lending. Developing effective supervision (to ensure meaningful and effective compliance with prudential rules) is difficult and time-consuming but essential. The difficulty of supervising universal banks and financial conglomerates is an argument used against them in developing countries. But universal banks may generate efficiency gains as they overcome the problems of inadequate reliable public information on industrial and commercial companies. Holding small equity stakes and being involved in corporate governance may be productive. The risk of overlending to related firms is likely to be small when banks hold small stakes in industrial firms; it is high when firms control banks. Pension funds and other institutional investors have grown in importance in many countries over the past thirty years or so, because of longer life spans and longer retirement. These funds started as labor market institutions and personnel management tools, but have become important financial intermediaries. Pension funds offer developing countries an alternative both for restructuring their public finances and for promoting their capital markets. Pension funds can play the role that thrift deposit institutions - such as savings banks, credit cooperatives, and building societies - played in developed countries in the nineteenth century. But thrift institutions can still contribute to financial and economic development by promoting thrift and facilitating credit rural areas and among low-income groups. They will contribute more if they involve a three tier structure that combines the benefits of local involvement and monitoring with centralized auditing and supervision.Banks&Banking Reform,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Financial Intermediation,Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,Decentralization,Banks&Banking Reform,Financial Intermediation,Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,Banking Law,Environmental Economics&Policies

Bank insolvencies : cross-country experience

Few areas of the world have escaped significant losses from episodes of bank insolvency. Bank insolvency is more costly in the developing world, where losses represent a greater share of income. The authors present data on bank insolvency episodes since the late 1970s. This new database can be used in conjunction with readily available data. Information and insights are presented in seven tables on: a) major bank insolvencies episodes and systemic banking crises; b) main characteristics of banking crises; c) trade terms in crisis countries; d) trade concentration prior to crises; e) restructuring characteristics; f) financial analysis of crisis countries; and g) restructuring outcome in crisis countries. In a companion paper the authors discuss possible preventatives and the tradeoff between safety and soundness versus efficiency. Meanwhile, this initial database suggests further avenues for research. There is a dearth of widely available indicators on bank performance. More attention should be focused on developing indicators that might predict bank insolvency for individual banks and systems as a whole. The authors devise criteria for assessing how governments deal with insolvency and find that countries handle it well.Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,Banks&Banking Reform,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Financial Intermediation,Decentralization,Banks&Banking Reform,Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,Financial Intermediation,Banking Law,Municipal Financial Management

Reforming finance in transitional socialist economies : avoiding the path from shell money to shell games

In the late 1980s, transitional socialist economies (TSEs) in Central and Eastern Europe were only somewhat more sophisticated than shell money systems: savings books or currency had to be used for most transactions and there was no risk assessment, information monitoring and acquisition, or portfolio management. The TSEs have moved toward a two-tiered banking system but they lag in the development of competitive, market-based financial systems. In several TSEs the financial system seems to be part of a shell game to hide the losses of the real economy. The authors argue that rapid, successful economic reform requires putting the shell game to an end. They review several contentious issues of financial reform in the TSEs, especially issues involving macrofinance, corporate finance, the internal debt problems, and the need to build efficient banks. The authors contend that the banks should be"cleaned up"when they are privatized, to prevent the quick reemergence of debt problems. They believe that either of the proposed alternatives for shaping financial systems in the TSEs - very highly capitalized banking or narrow banking - would minimize the need for future support. Either alternative would reduce leverage in the TSEs and provide more financial stability. But taking concerns about moral hazard to an extreme - prohibiting debt finance - could starve new firms for credit and limit economic growth.Economic Theory&Research,Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Financial Intermediation

Beyond capital ideals : restoring banking stability

The authors examine why emerging markets, in particular, are susceptible to and affected by financial difficulties. They show that these difficulties have a richer, more complex structure than they are sometimes believed to have - with marked information asymmetries and substantial volatility. The sources of heightened regulatory failure in emerging markets in recent years include the volatility of real and nominal shocks, the difficulty of operating in uncharted territory after financial liberalization and other changes in regime, and the political pressures that can inhibit the enforcement of prudential regulation. The authors discuss what stronger regulation can and cannot accomplish, as well as options to improve the incentive structure for bankers, regulators, and other market participants. They probe the shortcomings of a regulatory paradigm that relies mainly on supervised capital adequacy and discuss the possible intermittent application of supplementary"blunt instruments"as an interim solution while longer-term reforms are being put in place. Certain well-worn messages remain valid, but are respected more in theory than in practice. There would be fewer problems, the authors say, if there were: 1) more diversification; 2) more balanced financial structures (for example, as between debt and equity); 3) more foreign banks in emerging markets'financial systems; and 4) better enforcement of both contracts and regulations. Participants in the financial sector will constantly try to get around rules that limit their profitability, so regulation must be seen as an evolutionary struggle. Prevention of financial failure is not costless, and a heavy repressive hand is not warranted. But a richer regulatory palette can be used to protect financial systems more successfully against crisis while preserving the systems'growth-enhancing effectiveness.Environmental Economics&Policies,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Financial Intermediation,Banks&Banking Reform,Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,Economic Theory&Research,Banks&Banking Reform,Financial Intermediation,Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,Environmental Economics&Policies

Banking policy and macroeconomic stability - an exploration

Whether and when does banking serve to stabilize the economy? The authors view the banking system as a filter through which foreign and domestic shocks feed through to the domestic economy. The filter can dampen or amplify the shocks through various credit market channels, including credit growth, import of foreign capital, and possibly interest rates. The question is whether the prudential quality of banking, as proxied by measures of regulatory quality and openness to foreign banking, amplify or dampen these shocks. The authors find that many of the regulatory characteristics that have been found to deepen a financial system and make it more robust to crises-notably those which empower the private sector-also appear to reduce the sector's ability to provide short-term insulation to the macro-economy. It is as if prudent bankers are reluctant to absorb short-term risks that, if neglected, might cause solvency and growth problems in the longer run. Forbearance might dampen short-term volatility, but at the expense of the longer run health of the banking sector and the economy. One way to avoid this apparent tradeoff is evident: banking systems which have a higher share of foreign-owned banks, a feature already associated with financial deepening and lowered risk of crisis, also seem to score well in terms of short-term macroeconomic insulation.Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Financial Intermediation,Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,Banks&Banking Reform,Economic Theory&Research,Banks&Banking Reform,Financial Intermediation,Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,Economic Theory&Research,Settlement of Investment Disputes

Finance and its reform : beyond laissez-faire

That the financial sector should be liberalized was the orthodox view in the mid-1970s, during a pendulum swing toward reliance on the free market. In the early 1980s, the pendulum swung back to the left, based partly on evidence - especially from Latin America - that overly rapid reform had real costs, and partly on an increased appreciation of financial market failure. Blind adherence to free market principles was no longer appropriate. Now a counter-counterrevolution is in sight, with some swing back toward the view that the market makes a mess of it, but the government makes it even worse. The authors agree that market-oriented financial systems appear to do a better job than systems with extensive government involvement, but contend that the assumption that perfect competition will solve all problems in finance - especially in banking - can be dangerous. Information problems, implicit or explicit government guarantees associated with the payments system make banks unique. Governments implicitly recognize banking's uniqueness - few allow just anyone to enter banking - but public pronouncements and observers'recommendations often favor a move to more competition. Perfect competition, however, is optimal under the assumption, among others, of no government guarantee. In fact, most governments differ only in how explicit they are about their deposit insurance schemes. The financial reforms most likely to succeed are those that give banks an incentive to engage in safe and sound banking. When excessive competition is allowed, the charter value of banking diminishes to the point that it is no longer profitable for bankers to behave prudently. A consideration of finance's role, and a look at how reforming economies have fared, suggest also that gradual reform is often to be preferred in this domain. Deregulation of credit markets and interest rates can be counterproductive in unstable macroeconomic conditions and when banks are unsophisticated or have weak balance sheets. And changes in the charter value may evolve only slowly after reform. Faster progress and greater efforts should be made, however, in bank supervision and regulation and in institutional development, including accounting, auditing, legal and judicial reform, and training (of bankers and other finance professionals). In sum, many economies would benefit from less government intervention in financial markets, but the prescription should not be abrupt or total government withdrawal from the financial sector. Rather than intervening heavily in credit allocation decisions, governments should focus on doing what only they can do: providing an enabling environment for the private financial and nonfinancial sectors, and ensuring that financial operations are safe and sound.Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Financial Intermediation,Economic Theory&Research,Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring