Twenty-eight of the EU’s national governments gathered yesterday to discuss how the member states should deal with banks that are too-big-to fail. Banks that are over the 100 billion trading mark will be subjected to added scrutiny from regulators. According to Bloomberg, some financial institutions that fall under this category includes: Deutsche Bank, HSBC Holdings Plc, Barclays Plc, Commerzbank AG, among others.
In light of the financial crisis, which took down Lehman Brothers, a sprawling global bank, and ushered in a series of regulatory reforms, the EU is taking extra steps to ensure that future bank crisis can be handled without turning to government assistance.
Under the proposed law, banks with less than 35 billion euros will not be subjected to the new separation bill, but those that carry out trading activities of less than 100 billion euros will fall under the first of two “tiers” and will face “light” requirements, sources told Reuters. On the other hand, banks with trading activities that exceed 100 billion euros over a three-year period will be subjected to the provisions of the new law.
Britain will be exempted from the structural reforms because it has mandated it own capital banking requirements known as Vickers from 2019. If the new law does go into effect then Britain would have the opportunity to decide if there should be separation of trading activities.
The final law would go into effect if it receives endorsement from the national governments and the European Parliament. Last month the European Parliament’s economic affairs committee failed to reach an agreement ahead of negotiations with the bloc on the final law.
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