Sunday, October 9, 2011

Did Merkel, Sarkozy pledge to require banks to disclose their asset and liability-level data?

According to a Bloomberg article, Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy pledged that they will do
'everything necessary' to ensure that banks have enough capital.
By definition, the only way that market participants will know if banks have enough capital is if each bank discloses its asset and liability-level data.  With this data, market participants can do their own analysis and determine if the banks have enough capital.

As a result, the pledge to ensure that banks have enough capital is in fact a pledge to require banks to disclose their asset and liability-level data.

I look forward to working with the European policymakers, financial regulators and the Eurozone banks and turning this disclosure requirement into a data warehouse that is accessible for free by all market participants.

If the European policymakers, financial regulators and Eurozone banks are not enlisting my expertise in creating this data warehouse to support asset and liability-level disclosure, we can be assured they are not serious about recapitalizing the banks.  Most likely, they are relying on the already discredit financial regulators who managed to run a stress test that passed Dexia shortly before it needed to be nationalized.

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