The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act sweeps away most of the barriers limiting the affiliation of banks with nonbank financial services providers. The focus now shifts to financial services executives who must decide which combinations provide the best opportunities to increase shareholder wealth....

This paper was presented at the conference "Financial services at the crossroads: capital regulation in the twenty-first century" as part of session 6, "The role of capital regulation in bank supervision." The conference, held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on February 26-27, 1998, was...

This paper looks at the role of commercial banks and investment banks as financial advisors. Unlike some areas of investment banking, commercial banks have been allowed to compete directly with traditional investments banks in this area. In their role as lenders and advisors, banks can be...

Beginning in 1998, U.S. commercial banks with significant trading activities must hold capital against their defined market risk exposure. Under the current regulatory guidelines, this capital charge is a function of banks' own value-at-risk (VaR) estimates. Two hypothesis-testing methods for...

An examination of nonbanking asset divestitures, with an analysis of financial effects on the holding company, based on a study of 42 voluntary nonbank asset sales.

Austria’s Financial System Stability Assessment highlights Reports on the Observance of Standards and Codes on banking supervision, securities regulation, and insurance regulation. The banking sector has weathered the recent economic slowdown well, and is generally sound and resilient....

We assess the extent to which loan losses affect banks’ provision of credit to companies and households and examine how feedback from losses to a reduction in credit is affected by the monetary policy stance. Using a unique cross-country dataset of more than 600 banks from 32 countries, we...