Trade finance, particularly in the form of short-term letters of credit has received favourable capital treatment new Basel III rules. However, concerns have been expressed over the potential negative "unintended consequences" of the newly created leverage ratio for trade. This paper offers a...

Trade finance, particularly in the form of short-term letters of credit has received favourable capital treatment new Basel III rules. However, concerns have been expressed over the potential negative “unintended consequences” of the newly created leverage ratio for trade. This paper offers...

Trade finance, particularly in the form of short-term, self-liquidating letters of credit and the like, has received relatively favourable treatment regarding capital adequacy and liquidity under Basel III, the new international prudential framework. However, concerns have been expressed over...

On 3 December EY hosted a SUERF conference on banking reform with Sir Howard Davies, the Chairman of RBS, and Dame Colette Bowe, the Chairman of the Banking Standards Board, as the two keynote speakers. Professor David Miles (Imperial College) gave the SUERF 2015 Annual Lecture on Capital and...

We examine the determinants of bank capital structure using a sample of 569 large and publicly traded banks in 26 developed and emerging countries over the period 2004-2013. We use simultaneously two notions of capital ratio (risk- and non-risk based capital ratio) to provide a more...

This paper examines the Leverage Ratio and Total Capital Ratio of global versus non-global banks in both the pre- and post-crisis periods. A panel data set of 165 global and non-global financial institutions from 38 countries is used for the period 1999-2015 and a random effects model is...

This paper offers a critical survey of the swings in banking regulation, notably with reference to leverage and risk weighted ratios. At the outset the distinction is made between economic and regulatory capital and between private vs social costs/benefits of equity finance for banking firms....

This paper investigates whether European banks have capital targets and how deviations from the target impact their equity composition and activity mix. Using quarterly data for a sample of large European banks between 2004 and 2011, we show that there are notable asymmetries in banks' reactions...

We examine the pervasive view that "equity is expensive" which leads to claims that high capital requirements are costly for society and would affect credit markets adversely. We find that arguments made to support this view are fallacious, irrelevant to the policy debate by confusing private...