Lunchtime Links: ICB proposals; necessary reforms or another dark cloud for the banking industry?
On 12 September, The Independent Commission on Banking will publish its recommendations around the ring-fencing of banks retail operations away from riskier functions.
If, as some are anticipating, the recommendations are strict, it's not great news for banks like Barclays, RBS and HSBC who currently use their retail banking operations to secure funding advantages for their investment banks.
There's a lot of lobbying going on around the ICB's recommendations. Yesterday, both the CBI and the British Bankers' Association issued a warning about dire consequences should the proposals prove to bold. Now, it's Vince Cable's turn to offer an opinion, and (not surprisingly) he's largely dismissed banks' concerns.
Using the current economic concerns as an excuse to prevent regulatory reform is "disingenuous in the extreme" he told the Times.
"Banks are in a way trying to create a panic around something which they know has got to happen," he said.
It doesn't help, of course, that the coalition government is currently at odds about what the right course of action will be. Both George Osborne and David Cameron are in favour of the reforms, but want them implemented over a number of years - possibly until 2019 - while the LibDems are backing a wholesale split of investment and retail banking functions.
The latter is unlikely to be good for job prospects.
Trader pays $7k to escape floods in a helicopter (Bloomberg)
Banks have hired hundreds of staff to handle PPI complaints, but so far have paid out just 215m of the 7bn put aside (Financial Times)
UBS has begun layoffs across sales, research, trading and investment banking (Dealbreaker)
UBS has hired over 100 people for its Asian private bank in the last two months (Asia One)
Citigroup takes on new vice chairman of global banking in Asia (Reuters)
Bank of America has hire two co-heads of investment banking in Asia (The Asset)
Meet James Pearson, RBS's new head of FX spot trading (Wall Street Journal)
Equal pay for women is still 100 years away...(Independent)
Put bluntly: Wall Street will never be the same. Some businesses, such as the lucrative "tailor-made" derivatives of old, will shrink, while others, like "proprietary trading" on a bank's own account, will disappear. (Financial News)
Investment banks in Australia have been making small, quiet cuts (The Australian)
Quant employed to get around Citadel's security measures stole data and then lied about it. He's being fired. (Crain's Chicago Business)
Financial firms are curtailing their charitable donations (Dealbook)
Blodget's latest bomb for Bank of America (Business Insider)
