2011 bank stress tests to be tougher than 2010: EU
AP, Brussels: Upcoming stress tests on banks will be harsher than last year's, the European Union's bank regulator said Friday, although important elements of the exercise deemed crucial to the region's crisis strategy remain undecided.
Last year's tests were widely considered a failure after some banks passed, only to require bailouts weeks later. The new test will see how banks fare with an extreme deterioration in financial markets and economic activity in order to gauge where the weak links in Europe's financial system are.
The European Banking Authority said that the simulation will assume EU economic output will shrink 0.4 per cent in 2011 and will show no growth in 2012 — a 4 percentage point difference from current forecasts. That compares with a 3 percentage point drop assumed in the 2010 stress tests.
However, even though the tests' results are due to be published in June, some important elements are still up in the air.
Crucially, the bar that banks would have to jump to pass the tests — namely the minimum capital ratio they have to maintain despite the shocks — was still missing from the scenarios published Friday. The so-called core Tier-1 capital ratio currently varies from country to country and the EBA said it was still in the process of defining the one to be used for the tests.
It also wasn't clear how many banks would be tested this year. The EBA only said that the tests would cover a 'broadly similar group of banks' as last year, when 91 banks were included, and that the banks would represent more than 65 per cent of EU banking assets. In recently leaked documents the EBA said 88 banks would be tested but the number was not included in Friday's release.
The EBA faces the challenge of asserting its credibility against 27 national banking supervisors, many of whom are eager to protect the banks under their own watch. The discovery of huge capital holes in one country's banking system could not only become expensive to the national government but also make those banks vulnerable to takeovers.
The EBA has come under fire for not setting stricter shock scenarios for banks, with critics saying a partial default of a highly indebted country like Greece cannot be ruled out. However, banks will have to disclose all relevant exposure to sovereign bonds — including those of non-EU countries like the US and Japan — which would allow analysts to run their own calculations.
Sony Kapoor, the managing director of Re-Define, a think tank that lobbies for financial market reform, said the economic shock scenario didn't go far enough.
'The worst case scenario of a 2 per cent dip in growth hardly qualifies as a 'what-if' stress situation,' Kapoor said in a statement. In 2009 alone, the economy of the eurozone contracted 4.1 per cent.
However, he said the EBA could still make the stress tests more credible if the capital ratio required to pass is sufficiently high.
Another problem with the stress test scenarios is that they are based on rather predictable risks, which may already have been overtaken by recent developments in Japan and North Africa and their effects on the global economy and oil prices.
'These scenarios focus on the occurrence of known problems; they don't consider what kind of new problems could still come up,' said Mechthild Schrooten, economics professor at the University of Applied Sciences in Bremen.
Schrooten pointed to the sharp rise in the Japanese yen following the earthquake and tsunami in Japan as an unexpected risk that could hit European banks. 'We have reactions here that are entirely beyond our imagination,' she said.
The bank stress tests are seen as a central part of Europe's efforts to find its way out of a debt crisis that has already forced Greece and Ireland into international bailouts. Huge problems in Irish banks were the main reason that Ireland had to seek international help.
Analysts are also concerned about the health of banks in stronger countries like Germany and France, which are very exposed to Europe's troubled economies.
EU stress tests conducted last year were widely seen as a whitewash when only seven of 91 tested banks failed, and two Irish banks that passed the tests had to be rescued soon after.
This year's scenario is based on three elements set out with the help of the European Central Bank, the EBA said: A set of shocks within the EU mostly related to the debt crisis, a negative demand shock caused by problems in the United States, and a drop in the value of the dollar.
These developments would trigger increased unemployment and a decline in house prices, which would both hurt banks' chances of getting loans repaid.
For the eurozone, the shock scenarios foresee an average increase in long-term government bond yields of about 0.75 percentage points, with the interest rate for German bonds remaining stable. On top of that, stock prices would drop 15 per cent under the scenario.
Japan to ease monetary policy further: Roubini
Reuters, Beijing: Nouriel Roubini, best known for predicting the US housing meltdown, said he expects Japan's central bank to ease monetary policy further by buying more government debt in the wake of the earthquake.
Roubini, one of Wall Street's most closely followed economists, said the Bank of Japan would have to set aside more money to buy bonds from the government to help pay for Japan's reconstruction works.
The BoJ's future purchases of government bonds, also known as quantitative easing, are likely to be larger than the amount that was unveiled this week, Roubini said on the sidelines of a conference in Beijing.
'They have already done QE I, QE II, now there will be a third round, and the third round might be larger than the smaller amount of quantitative easing that they have done so far,' he told Reuters.
The BoJ doubled the cash it sets aside for buying assets such as government bonds on Monday to 10 trillion yen ($124.1 billion) in an emergency move to shore up confidence in crisis-stricken Japan.
That was the second round of quantitative easing unveiled by the BoJ since October, when it first set aside a pool of 5 trillion yen to buy assets to partly rein in the yen.
'They need their massive fiscal stimulus for rebuilding, but they are starting with a very large public deficit and with a very large stock of debt,' Roubini said.
'Once their deficit becomes much larger, and they need it to build parts of the country that are damaged, then the BoJ is going to be starting another round of easing - QE III,' he said.
Analysts have estimated that the earthquake and nuclear emergency could cost Japan up to $200 billion, or about 4 per cent of its gross domestic product.
Such a bill would strain Japan's already fragile fiscal health. Its government is one of the world's most indebted. The public debt is twice the size of the $5.3 trillion economy, and the fiscal deficit is about 9 per cent of GDP.
But Roubini said massive reconstruction spending could lift Japan's economy later this year, jolting it from a slump in production in the near term caused by factory shutdowns in the aftermath of the quake.
That means the world's third-largest economy could escape a recession, he said.
'If they start the reconstruction fast enough, the policy stimulus might lead to a recovery of growth,' Roubini said. 'There are downside risks to Japanese growth, but I would not necessarily predict another real recession for now.'
Hyundai recalls 1,90,000 cars in US
AFP, Seoul: South Korea's largest automaker, Hyundai Motor Co, has recalled 1,90,000 cars with faulty airbags in the United States, a news agency report said Saturday.
Hyundai recalled 1,90,000 Elantra passenger cars sold between 2006 and 2008 in the US as they have defective airbag sensors, Yonhap news agency said.
The recall is expected to begin next month, it said.
IBM to pay $10 million to settle Asian bribe case
AFP, Washington: IBM has agreed to pay $10 million to settle charges it gave cash and gifts to Chinese and South Korean officials to win contracts for mainframe and personal computers and other products.
The agreement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission calls for the US computer titan to pay disgorgement of $5.3 million, interest of $2.7 million and a civil penalty of $2 million.
Under the agreement, which is subject to court approval and was released by the SEC on Friday, IBM does not admit or deny the allegations it violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
In the complaint filed with the US District Court for the District of Columbia, the SEC outlined the accusations against IBM, which is based in Armonk, New York.
The complaint detailed instances of IBM Korea employees allegedly handing over envelopes filled with cash to South Korean officials in parking lots, providing them with free notebook computers, fiddling bid sheets and making payments to the bank account of a 'hostess in a drink shop.'
It said employees of IBM subsidiaries and a majority-owned joint venture provided cash and improper gifts, travel and entertainment to Chinese and South Korean government officials between 1998 and 2009.
From 1998 to 2003, employees of IBM Korea and joint venture LG IBM PC Co. paid $207,000 in cash bribes and gave improper gifts to South Korean government officials to secure the sale of IBM products, the complaint said.
It said that from 2004 to 2009, employees of IBM China provided overseas trips, entertainment and improper gifts to Chinese government officials.
'The misconduct in China involved several key IBM China employees and more than 100 IBM China employees overall,' the complaint said.
IBM China employees 'created slush funds at local travel agencies in China that were then used to pay for overseas and other travel expenses incurred by Chinese government officials,' it said.
'In addition, IBM China employees created slush funds at its business partners to provide a cash payment and improper gifts, such as cameras and laptop computers, to Chinese government officials,' it added.
'Deficient internal controls allowed employees of IBM's subsidiaries and joint venture to use local business partners and travel agencies as conduits for bribes or other improper payments to South Korean and Chinese government officials over long periods of time,' the complaint said.
It said improper payments were recorded as 'legitimate business expenses.'
In a statement acknowledging the settlement, IBM said it 'insists on the highest ethical standards in the conduct of its business and requires all employees to follow its policies and procedures for conducting business.'
IBM shares were up 0.95 per cent at $155.65 shortly before the closing bell on Wall Street.
Samsung unit fined $32m for price-fixing
AFP, Washington: A unit of Korean conglomerate Samsung was fined $32 million for involvement in an Asian price fixing ring for a key computer monitor component, the US Justice Department said Friday.
Samsung SDI agreed to plead guilty to one felony charge in the case, which involved a pact to cut production, fix prices and divvy up market share for colour display tubes.
'Samsung SDI and co-conspirators exchanged CDT sales, production, market share and pricing information for the purpose of monitoring and enforcing adherence to their agreements,' the department said in a statement.
It said that parties hashed out the deals in talks in Taiwan, South Korea, Malaysia, China and elsewhere.
Samsung SDI was the first company fined in the sprawling conspiracy dating back to 1997-2006. The Justice Department said six other people have been indicted in the past two years in the case.
Two of those, Wen Jun 'Tony' Cheng and Cheng Yuan 'CY' Lin, were executives of Taiwan's Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd, which was involved in a separate, sprawling conspiracy to fix prices of thin film transistor-liquid crystal display panels.
Twenty-two executives and eight companies, including firms from Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, have been charged in that ongoing investigation.
Some of the accused have pleaded guilty and agreed to pay fines totalling more than $890 million.
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