European banks in 2012 will face the contraction of profitability and the need to reward and strengthen equity, and will probably have to reduce capacity with regard to networks and staff. In a context of mergers and acquisitions that will affect mainly, but not only, medium and small banks.

The crisis has produced its effects on households incomes and on their savings behaviour.The reduction in disposable income and savings is the cost that households pay to compensate delays in the adjustment of public finances and to support businesses investments. A detailed analysis on the...

The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September 2008 and, shortly afterwards, the near downfall of the insurance conglomerate American International Group (Aig), both of which were heavily involved in the Cds sector, polarised attention towards the Cds activities of the major international banks....

Risk management is a process that needs to be strengthened, since it is aimed to reinforce banks’ stability and to prevent financial crises. For this reason, it should be embedded in business strategies and based on more severe evaluation techniques and stringent internal control systems

The Basel Agreements, designed to pursue financial stability, have been instead a cause of instability, revealing fundamental analytical and operational weaknesses. The idea to define a constant capital ratio through complex statistical models implies serious dangers. A radical change is...

The current financial crisis was not something unexpected, a «black swan», but rather an event caused by human action and inaction, and therefore predictable and avoidable. The analysis of the role of the financial system, regulation, business models and management systems leads to point out...

The new supervisory regulation on insurance companies (Solvency II) defines capital requirements in line with actual risks of the enterprise. The three pillars of Solvency II are aimed to develop a wider culture of risk and a higher logical consistency between actual risk and business decisions.

In analyzing the options available to strengthen capitalization of Italian banks during the crisis, it is useful to build an evaluating system for cost/yield in different scenarios.The results of a simulation of so-called Tremonti bonds show that these are useful tools even if economic...

From the ongoing debate on the need to amend remuneration policies, two trends are emerging: one ethical, the other that considers the issue of incentives as a management tool that can influence operational efficiency. First of all, it is necessary to discuss the conditions that may enhance the...