"ECB agrees UK clearing houses can work outside currency area" , p.8

30/3/15

 

ALL IN TODAY'S FINANCIAL TIMES .........

 

"ECB agrees UK clearing houses can work outside currency area" , p.8

 A dry topic perhaps, but an important one ...... important for London, that is. The news that Britain and the ECB have come to a deal that will allow clearing houses in London to continue to handle euro-denominated transactions is a welcome boost for the City's future as a major financial centre. Clearing (the risk-managing of privately negotiated deals) is big business and runs into trillions of dollars of notional value. One can't help but wonder however what the ECB's stance might be if Britain voted out of the EU altogether at a referendum that the Conservatives have promised by the end of 2017 (should they get the chance).

"BIG READ .... Lex in depth / Universal Banks" , p.11

 Although this piece is written from the point of view of an investor unhappy with the returns on investment in banks, it gives a detailed analysis of how banks are restructuring themselves, or at least should be. It's the whole investment bank / retail bank debate of course.  Oliver Ralph suggests that banks should be specialising in one or another and that the so-called universal banks are less likely to be successful. Well worth a read .....

 

"The real Eurozone problems are hidden under the bonnet", p.13

 For those who have always struggled to understand how the industrial northern European nations and the smaller (in GDP terms) nations from the south of the Eurozone can be fitted successfully into the same monetary jacket, the answer is they can't. At least not without the creation of the kind of imbalances we are seeing now . Notwithstanding the imminent possibility of a Greek exit from the euro, these imbalances ask fundamental questions that Europeans need to answer.