...include the reasons for the global financial crisis and what steps the government is taking to overcome or recover from the crisis. One of the main reasons emphasized in the following text for the crisis is lack of effective regulations. Moreover the most important financial alteration that various committee’s around the world are taking is strengthening the regulatory requirements on the financial institutions. Hereafter it could be settled that government intervention could have played a huge role in avoiding the crisis. Many countries around the world have to decide whether to regulate or not to regulate their accounting standards. Supporters of regulation usually state that the free market notion states that accounting information is like an economic good so it is best to leave the markets to decide what and how much information is needed. This will help achieve efficient market system, however this kind of a system exists only in theory and not in reality, and so then what is the point of a free market system when it cannot be efficient? (Y. Hong, 2007) The rewards of free market system are realized only when it is executed in isolation. But in reality, markets cannot be left completely on its own and some regulation or government intervention is required. Government intervention even at its minimum will not be able to achieve efficient markets and thus it is better to have a well regulated system. Free market system has led to market failures that have had major adverse...
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...of regulation in order to reduce the risk of bank failing. With the regulation, the banks would be authorised on the basis of meeting minimum standards, and will continued to be supervised to ensure that certain standards or requirements are maintained. This would instill more confidence to the economic actors.[1] The risk of the banks become poorly capitalised, fraudulently or incompetently run compared to if no system of external regulation were take place will be lower. Unfortunately, the regulation does not perform well as an alternative for the regulation by the market, nor replace the need for management to take prime responsibility for bank’s activities. As time goes by, there has been increasing recognition of both the limitation of regulation and its role. [2] Perhaps, the market discipline will play a greater role in financial and to bring benefits in future. Nevertheless, an effective system of regulation still play an important role in minimising the risk of bank failure and to maintain consumers’ confidence in the banking system. Banking Regulation: Objectives and Rationales The main objectives of banking regulation are to protect the investors and provide prevention of bank failures and depositor runs as well as minimisation of the risk of contagion that these may create.[3] The term regulation is used in a broad sense, Goodhart used it to refer to the different ways in which the activities of banks are monitored and controlled by governments and financial regulatory...
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...Financial Regulatory Reform ECO 238 12/07/2009 “Over the past two years, we have faced the most severe financial crisis since the Great Depression. The financial system failed to perform its function as a reducer and distributor of risk. Instead, it magnified risks, precipitating an economic contraction that has hurt families and businesses around the world.” (Geithner & Summers) While the current crisis had many causes, it is clear that the government could have done more to prevent many of the problems from growing out of control and threatening the stability of our financial system. Gaps and weaknesses in the management and regulation of financial firms presented challenges to our government’s ability to monitor, prevent, or address risks as they built up in the system, which caused the enormous bailouts or the massive financial collapses of financial institutions. The previous approaches to bank holding company regulation focused on protecting the subsidiary bank, not on the comprehensive regulation of the whole firm. In June, the President, proposed a new financial regulatory plan for the financial system. The new reform, as mentioned by the President, would protect consumers, impose new restraints on financial institutions and guard against the dismal practices that caused the market crisis. The new reform would generally be adopted by regulators since it mostly affects them. Timothy Geithner who is the secretary of the Treasury and Lawrence Summers who is...
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...resulted in the collapse of Barings Bank, due to this the Financial Services Authority changed the structure of financial regulation that consolidated regulation responsibilities. The aftermath of the financial crisis of 2007 to 2009 has drawn the financial accounting standard setting into the orbit of political processes focused on restructuring the regulation of the world’s financial markets. The crisis has ignited worldwide debate on issues of systemic risk and the role played by financial regulation in creating exacerbating the crisis. There have been proposals for how to regulate the financial markets and financial institutions should be changed to ease the potential for large scale financial meltdowns in the future. There are many aspects of the financial system under debate, including the alleged role played by financial accounting standards in deepening the trajectory of the crisis. The crisis has forced politicians, regulators and economists to scrutinise financial accounting standards and create pressure for change, which creates an opportune moment to consider how to organise the analysis of efficient regulatory choice. This paper lays out the basic arguments that have been put forth both for and against the regulation of corporate reporting. 2. The Case of Mandatory Disclosure Here the paper discusses issues related to the nature of disclosure, whether it is a case of choice or formal regulation (voluntary or mandatory). We are being introduced key theories...
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...Briefing Note Introduction In 2007 to mid-2009, the world has suffered the worst financial crisis since the Great Depressions in 1920s. This followed by a wave of economic downturn. Learnt from the crisis, it is suggested that a forceful response by regulators, may help prevent deteriorating further. The objective of this note is to identify the crisis effects on both the financial system and the economy and to provide implications on further financial regulations. Effects Financial System: Many institutions collapsed in the USA and Europe within the period. Figure 1 directly shows a considerable rise of the number of bank failure particularly from 2008 to 2010 in the U.S. This deteriorated the macro-structure of many developed countries. Firms called for ‘bailouts’ or recapitalization from governments to help stabilize the financial system. Or, others were closed, forcibly merged with stronger counterparts, or recapitalized using taxpayer’s money. More effects are given below: 1. Banks have been hit hardly by deteriorating capital & liquidity problems and worsening market confidence. * Global banking sector lost almost half of the capital base at the beginning of the crisis in 2007 (Lybeck, 2011). * Low central-bank interest rate: concerns over deflation by monetary policy makers resulted in long-term low interest rates. Figure 2 presents that in the U.S., a slump of 4% in Federal Funds Rate to nearly zero in 2010 while Bank of England has held rates...
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...Counteracting the global economic crisis: values, institutions, policies. When talking about the broad and complicated subject of economic crisis, it is important to mention ideas concerning neutralization of its consequences and prevention of future calamities. The current disturbance in the global economy requires not only to understand how it was initiated, but also how to counteract and draw conclusions from it. The Chinese proverb says: “may you live in interesting times.” These times are now- financial markets are in turmoil, China is rising as economic power, young people from Europe and America are protesting against, what they see as ineffective government and regulations. In next years the world will change even more- also thanks to changes, that will be made as an answer to the global economic crisis- in terms of values, necessary institutions and policies. The first step toward ending the crisis is to introduce new regulations, that would stabilize the market. Since 1980’s the American financial market has been experiencing a long period of deregulation. Although the obvious results of this move- the example can be the deregulation of savings and loans companies, that led to crisis in 1989, the process continued. Decade later, in 1990’s the new market instruments- derivatives, became increasingly popular. Although, their allies argued that they would stabilize the market, the opposite happened. Any attempt to regulate hedge funds was cut out by Commodity...
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...surrounding financial services compliance along the industries lines of legislative, economic, industry driven, political, environmental and possible scandals relating to all of these areas. The information has been gathered from the British Virgin Islands jurisdiction from sources such as Financial Services Commission, British Virgin Islands Government and internationally, from the International Monetary Fund, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and the text, International Compliance Training Ltd. The research is basically theoretically driven to ascertain if the industry would be better off with regulation or left for participants to operate freely. Introduction: Scandals (such as Enron, WorldCom), the September 11 attack and financial crisis of 2007 and 2008 brought attention to loopholes of legislation that market participants have been taking advantage of for years. It was never the intention of regulation to cause market abuse, insider dealings or loss of investments or tangible properties. This paper details the shortcoming of legislation but also highlights how an effective regulatory environment can be achieved. What is Regulation? Regulation is defined according to the International Compliance Training Ltd as a set of binding rules by a public or private body with the necessary authority to supervise compliance and apply sanctions, penalties etc. for non-compliance (International Compliance Training, 2015). All financial services...
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...knowing very few things about financial market and services (FMS). However, after 4 weeks of research and many enthusiastic discussions among our group members, it has helped me understand a lot more about FMS as well as the financial crisis, specifically sub-prime crisis. To begin, from doing this project I have come to know that financial markets in the world are interconnected. When US financial system collapsed, with the demise of some of the biggest financial institutions in US, it jeopardised the whole world’s economy. Inflation soars, credit crunch were one of the few horrible effects that the breakdown of US financial system affected financial system worldwide. At the same time, the crisis shook investors’ confidence across the world, which led to low liquidity in financial market and subsequently a devastating global economy meltdown. Furthermore, I have learnt that risk management is indispensable in a financial system, a “make or break” factor. Though taking risk may provide us with a higher return, we can never be overly greedy and take too much risk without handling them probably as they may back-fire. What happened in US is an exact example of what we call “lesson learnt the hard way”. It has definitely shown the world’s investors how immensely vital risk management is in a financial system, proving its undeniable influence on financial market and services. In addition, by doing this project, it has taught me the importance of regulations. One of many reasons contributed...
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...to Function: The Absurdity of Market Regulation There are many theories as to what was the underlying cause of the Great Recession from which America is still recovering. Popular ideas generally include irrational exuberance on the part of commercial banks, executive compensation packages which encouraged bankers to over-leverage themselves, and the collapse of the sub-prime housing market. While it is probable that some of these factors played a role in the crisis, none of them can accurately explain the near complete collapse of the financial system that began in late 2007. In fact, the cause of the financial crisis can be directly traced to the failure of government regulators to recognize the dangers of interactions between several different laws designed to protect the system. In their book entitled Engineering the Financial Crisis, authors Jeffery Friedman and Wladimir Kraus lay out an argument asserting that the crisis was caused by an unforeseen interaction between capital requirements for banks and the use of Mark to Market accounting methods. They further contend that there was a “master regulatory mistake that precipitated the crisis: using the bond ratings produced by Moody’s, S&P, and Fitch as the determinant of the capital levels required of banks by law” (Friedman 148). The book contains four chapters; the first is devoted to the refutation of several prevailing theories as to the cause of the financial crisis, the second and third explore the ...
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...Regulation is any set of rules imposed by governments or agents of governments that seek to change the behavior of economic agents, usually with the objective of improving the economic welfare of the whole community. Financial regulation guides and monitors what financial institutions do and the regulations are there to improve economics stability. In this essay I am going to look at two different types of regulations, rules and principles based regulation. Rules based regulation brings about compliance cost for firm and monitoring costs for regulators, while, principles based regulation (PBR) relies more on ethical behavior and transparency of business dealing. Also I going to look at financial regulators, who they are and what their duties...
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...Part A: 1. Introduction The Financial Crisis of 2007-2010 is often cited as the most significant downturn in the economy since the Great Depression of the 1930s. It erupted on August 9, 2007 and spread throughout the advanced market economies such as the US and the UK. The Financial crisis of 2007 is notably different from other crises we faced, for instance Anthony Herbst and Joseph Wu (2009) argued that ‘the financial crisis of this first decade of the 3rd millennium has features that make it both severe and somewhat intractable’. The crisis is argued to be not exogenous to our capitalist economic system, since it is intimately connected to financial innovation and de-regulation in financial markets. Furthermore, as Herbst and Wu (2009) advocate, ‘the current pandemic’ should be discussed in the light of ‘the political wrapper surrounding many aspects of it, and the threads running through it’. The economic situation and financial behaviour are always affected by political realm, so it is also necessary to consider political factors in evaluation of the crisis. General causes of this crisis are still being debated in the academic literature, and this paper aims to provide a relatively comprehensive outlook on the most common and empirically successful accounts of factors that contributed to the crisis. This report is organised as follows: part 1 provides a brief introduction to the current financial crisis; part 2 briefly evaluates the possible causes; part 3 examines whether...
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...Positive and Negative Effects of the Global Financial Crisis Harlita H. Tomlinson Capella University BMGT8114: Accounting in the Global Era Dr. Wendy Achilles June 8,2014 Table of Contents Abstract 3 Positive and Negative Effects of the Global Financial Crisis 4 Background on the Global Financial Crisis 5 Global Financial Crisis and Its Negative Effects 9 Lack of Financial Sector Regulation and Oversights 9 Increase in the Number of Bankruptcies 11 Global Financial Crisis and Its Positive Effects 12 Designing Regulations to Monitor the Financial Sector 12 Global Governance as a Side Effect of the Global Financial Crisis 13 Lessons Learned 16 Domestic Lessons Learned 16 Global Lessons Learned 17 Lessons from Romania. 18 The Role of Financial Executives in GFC 19 Conclusions 21 References 24 Abstract The first financial crisis of the twenty-first century has not yet ended, according to Gorton and Metrick (2012), the wave of research on the crisis has already exceeded any single reader’s capacity, with the pace of new work only making this task harder. The Global Financial Crisis is considered by many economists to be the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Global Financial Crisis resulted in the threat of the total collapse of large financial institutions, the bailout of banks by national governments, and market downturns around the world. In the aftermath of this crisis, the housing market declined significantly and has not recovered...
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...* Critical Analysis on Costs and Benefits of the Financial Sector Within the UK. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Introduction The international financial crisis has drawn an international attention in financial regulation and policies made by governments have become increasingly prominent. In particular, strengthening financial regulation in London as an international financial centre requires huge efforts. London has been able to an international financial centre continuously, mainly due to a large number talent are familiar with the financial industry London has a unique advantage in language and location (Re, 2005). In addition to banking sectors, insurance, trust, securities and asset management business also developed. However DeMartino (2000) highlighted the current global economic depression and international financial crisis, along with UK Treasury published paper “The reform of the financial markets” referred to as “the worst crisis in 60 years”. In contrast, Frieden (2000) described the analysis of the causes of the British government's international financial crisis, and make policy recommendations on how to strengthen financial regulation. UK Financial Regulation Authorities According to Green (2011) Britain's “2009 Banking Act” was taken effect in which compared with the previous various banking laws, this law shows characteristics such as authorizing the Bank...
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...Global Lessons from the Recent Financial Crisis: Need for Reforms Jason Khan – 212857264 Yiwen Shen – 212828810 Alexander Grynszpan – 212811618 Xueyan wu - 212828380 INTRODUCTION Mortgage Backed Securities Lack of Regulations in the Banking System Lack of Regulations in the Credit Rating Agencies Subprime Mortgages Financial Crisis of 2007-2009 Lack of Regulations of over-thecounter derivatives Introduction to the Financial Crisis Causes of the Financial Crisis Reforms introduced International response Conclusion Cause: Subprime Mortgage - Housing prices were on the rise à More difficult for consumers to purchase - Investment banks purchased the mortgages from individual lenders, re-packaged them, and sold them to an even larger quantity of small and large investors - Borrowed money to magnify the outcome à Created collateral debt obligations (CDO) - Mortgages were sometimes given without down payments, or assurance of repayments - When the housing bubble “popped”, investment banks held massive debts without means of paying them à led to declaration of bankruptcy Introduction to the Financial Crisis Causes of the Financial Crisis Reforms introduced International response Conclusion Cause: Mortgage backed securities - Important players in the Crisis: Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA), and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (FHLMC), or as known as Fanny Mae ad Freddy Mac - Through mortgage backed...
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...corporate governance and risk management in financial regulatory reform As regulators and policymakers continue their efforts to find the best way to prevent a repetition of the financial crisis that almost engulfed the world economy, re-evaluating how corporate governance and risk management can make the financial system more secure has become a crucial question. Clifford Chance organised three round-table debates between 2009-2010 to assess this issue. With financial regulatory reform continuing to dominate the global political agenda, Clifford Chance has decided to publish a summary of these discussions as part of its commitment to promoting a balanced and informed analysis of the challenges that lie ahead. Much has been written and spoken about the causes of the financial crisis. Most people accept it is time to learn the lessons and move on. While the need to reform the banking and the financial services sector is beyond question, there is a tension between the desire to ‘get it right’ and the intense pressure for politicians and regulators to act quickly and decisively. In the ensuing debate over regulation and reform, the real issues of corporate governance and risk management have been largely obscured by the remuneration question. “There are some conflicting imperatives,” said Michael Bray, a partner in Clifford Chance’s London office. “We still have a long way to go.” Among a host of challenges facing the global financial community are questions of its own reputation...
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