Increasing Competition On The Balance Sheet

The banking industry has undergone major upheaval in recent years, largely due to the lingering recessionary environment and increased regulatory environment. Many banks have failed in the face of such tough environmental conditions. These conditions

Competition is prevalent in various aspects of life, including sports, school, and jobs. Everyone at some point in their lifetime will have to compete against others in order to achieve a goal or earn a prize. It’s how the world has worked for a long time; it’s survival of the fittest and this minor competition between everyone is how we have continuously gotten smarter, faster, and stronger. Competition is necessary to a certain degree, but how much is too much? It’s definitely not a bad thing, and as long as there’s a healthy amount, it can be beneficial because it fosters self-improvement, and it will push people to go all out and try their absolute best.

Along with the greater profitability restrictions imposed on banks from the Dodd Frank comes the banks will for greater cost management, meaning job cuts. Already the Banks have begun laying employees off from burdening restrictions leading to this brutal method of retaining necessary capital needed for operations ("Wall Street Journal"). The bigger the bank, the greater resentment they have over this act. Their financial statements will have to retain a greater amount of compliance and transparency as well. Because of the large prominence of “shadow banking” and the concealed balance sheet elements that came along with this practice, the banks now are imposed with greater regulation to prevent these stealthy tactics of borrowing and investing. These restrictions, in my belief, will provide greater protection to the consumer but will also provoke institutions to begin innovating financial instruments to get around barriers, just as they did in the past with interstate banking and early consolidated services even before Glass-Steagalls act. The bankers oppose the act due to their cut in profits. Reduced outlets in revenue from specific revenue generating activities have been capped and larger expenses in order to comply with the new rules have also greatly cut profitability. The same notion is held with brokers. Because of the greater compliance costs served

Since the onset of the financial crisis 2008, the sovereign debt crisis in western economies and the new financial regulation with Basel III coming up, the financial industry faces the challenge of reinventing itself. The ring-fence for Commercial and Investment Banking, and new economic and regulatory capital requirements will determine the kinds of products banks will be able to distribute. It will have a huge impact in the Investment Banking business, which will suffer tough regulation and supervisory procedures. At the same time, credit risk models will be reviewed because they have failed to predict the crisis of 2008. The current financial and economic crisis doesn’t have any precedent in the past.

Bank’s debt structures and amount of loans reported on balance sheets post crisis had changed due to short-term creditors and borrowers. Banks with more deposit inflows reduced their lending amounts on short-term debt. The failure of Lehman Brothers caused banks to reduce their lending because they were greatly affected by the credit line cuts that came with the failure. Another finding on balance sheets was that there was an increase in commercial and industrial loans. However, that was not driven by growth in loans but rather it was increased through drawdowns on existing credit lines. The cause of the decline was due to the failure of Lehman Brothers along with decisions of firms to cut back on expansion plans because of the recession. The decrease in lending wasn’t only affected by the drop in demand but also the decrease in the amount of supply available at banks. Banks that had less access to deposit inflows and a higher threat to credit line cuts took steps to reduce their lending efforts when compared to other banks. (Ivashina et al., 20) Banks saw more changes in lending amounts when tightening of credit standards came into play as well. By tightening

Recent studies have investigated the impact of the 2007-2009 financial crises on banks’ capital. Berger and Bouwman (2011) emphasised the importance of capital during financial crisis. Their empirical study concludes that banks with solid capital base have some benefits during the crisis than those that are poorly capitalised. Well capitalised banks are more able to withstand the shocks due to liquidity squeeze, and therefore had higher chances of surviving the crisis period. Other benefits accrued to well capitalised banks include increase in their market share and profitability, as customers withdrew their funds from less capitalised to a well-capitalised banks. This conclusion was also reinforced by a recent empirical study conducted Olivier de Bandt et al (2014) on a sample of large French banks over a period of 1993 – 2012. Similarly, Gambacorta and Marques-Ibanez (2011) demonstrate the existence of structural changes during the period of financial crisis. They conclude that banks with weaker core capital positions, greater dependence on market funding and on non-interest sources of income restricted the loan supply more strongly during the crisis period. Using a multi-country panel of banks, Demirgüç-Kunt, Detragiache and Merrouche (2010) find among others results, that during

Extensive research has determined that the banking industry is in an unstable state. The industry’s profits have

Even the largest of investment banks such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley were so confident in their products that they too maintained large holdings of ‘super senior’ tranches on their balance sheets, thus wiping billions of dollars of their balance sheets too. However whilst it is true that the bankers over zealous nature and thirst to maximise profits lead to the breaching of standards and forfeit of reliable credit checks, they were still allowed to do it. This leads to the plausible involvement of the credit rating agencies and the Governments lack of regulation and in some cases irresponsible regulation.

In the shadow banking system there is an highly important part in the process which is the securitisation process. The securitisation process is a method where illiquid assets are transformed into liquid tradable instruments. In more detail the securitisation process is a method which gives the banks the opportunity to removes the loans from the asset side of their balance sheet meaning that they evenly spread the associated risks to the other financial units. This could be due to the fact that shadow banks are largely unregulated. However during the financial crisis the shadow banking system also helped magnify the risks in the banks balance sheets since after the financial crisis there was an increase in the regulation in the shadowing banking system.

“Our primary concern right now – my primary concern – is the stability of our financial system, the orderliness of the markets, and that’s where our focus is.”3 – Henry Paulson, Secretary of the Treasury

In the first section, we will look at the overview of the banking industry such as the strategic position, its structure, and information on major competitors. We will also look at the strategic developments at the industry level as well as overall competitive challenges. We analyzed the trends that impact on the business growth, innovation and risk management. We also examined the implications of some developments for business, regulatory

To identify an appropriate strategy for a given industry one must look into the external and internal factors influencing the company. This Schnell Air report has been conceived with a triple objective in mind: to provide the Schnell Air Board with (i) a brief and compelling synthesis of Schnell Air’s competitive market environment overview since it entered the Innsbruck – Turin route in January 1997 as compared to prior to its entry, (ii) analyse the available data to establish the extent of predatory pricing strategies being plotted by the two existing duopolies – Air Turin and Innsbruck Air and (iii) by using a Game Theoretic approach model and highlight the affect of a 4th daily service on the same route given the

When making a financial analysis on a bank, the type of business it conducts need to be considered. Specialization can lead a bank to operate in different practices and have a varied structure of their balance sheet. If the structure and composition of the bank is not to be considered, financial statement analysis will provide misleading information. This report will investigate the implications of bank specialization on its financial statement analysis.

Over the last few decades, private banking has become one of the most important sectors among the financial services industries. Private banking has shown a significant growth during the last decade with increasingly changes as a result of the development of the clients’ economical and demographical needs and expectations. Accordingly, there was a diversification in terms of the products and services offered to customers.

List of abbreviations List of tables Acknowledgements Abstract 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Introduction Problem statement Objectives and hypothesis of the study Literature review Structure and performance of the financial sector in