Friday, November 16, 2012

OCC's Curry says 'big bank chiefs must meet higher standard'

According to a Bloomberg article, the OCC's Thomas Curry is asking banks to meet a higher standard when it comes to risk management.

Regular readers know that this higher standard is voluntarily providing ultra transparency and disclosing on an ongoing basis their current global asset, liability and off-balance sheet exposure details.

By making this information available, banks subject themselves to market discipline when it comes to management of their risk.  Higher risk translates immediately into higher funding costs.  Lower risk translates immediately into lower funding costs.

Heads of the biggest U.S. banks are being asked to meet higher conduct standards separate from the Volcker rule and Basel III capital requirements, said Comptroller of the Currency Thomas Curry
The regulator of national banks said in an interview that his agency is operating by a new “internal written framework” to guide its bank supervisors and the banks’ leaders to insist on the “highest standards” in corporate governance and risk management.... 
In his first speech since the re-election of President Barack Obama, Curry said today at a Clearing House conference in New York that the OCC intends to ensure big banks don’t “sow the seeds of the next crisis.”... 
Which can only be accomplished if the big banks provide ultra transparency.

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