Moral Hazard in Banking Essays

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

The Banking Act of 1933 was vital to the nation. As the country was based on a gold standard, the government was only able to inject supplies of currency based on gold in-hand. Prior to the Banking Act of 1933, people had been hoarding supplies of gold due to their fear of the market’s instability. The government needed to inject liquidity into the market, so these supplies of gold were needed. Banks could not make loans without this liquidity. The government established the “Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation,” which would ensure the people’s deposits in banks up to $5,000. This would lead to increased confidence in the banks, as they people’s money would be secured by the government. Banks, with these increased deposits, could loan out more money

According to Randall ‘too big to fail,’ (TBTF) policy is legal reorganization of the fragile bank so that uninsured creditors and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation could be saved from suffering a loss. In addition, Randall argues it is necessary to extend the TBTF policy to all depositors and creditors of larger banks to avoid the situation of a failure of such banks will lead to failure of other banks. Randall argues that the federal safety net should be limited only to banking institutions and should not enlarge to non-banking institutions. For the reason that in case of failure of such large non-banks and banks, government will have to use taxpayer funds to absorb such

In 2008, when the financial crisis occurred, millions of Americans were left without jobs and trillions of dollars of wealth was lost wealth. To make sure the Great Recession would not happen again, President Barrack Obama put into effect the Dodd- Frank Act. With the help of this law, banks will not be able to take irresponsible risks that had negative effects on the American people. Furthermore, with the Volcker Rule embedded into the act, it will ensure that banks are no longer allowed to own, invest, or sponsor hedge funds, private equity funds, or proprietary trading operations for their own profit, unrelated to serving their

Before the advent of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) in 1933 and the general conception of government safety nets, the United States banking industry was quite different than it is today. Depositors assumed substantial default risk and even the slightest changes in consumer confidence could result in complete turmoil within the banking world. In addition, bank managers had almost complete discretion over operations. However, today the financial system is among the most heavily government- regulated sectors of the U.S. economy. This drastic change in public policy resulted directly from the industry’s numerous pre-regulatory failures and major disruptions that produced severe economic and social

In order to better the financial crisis, financial experts must first understand where the problem originated. In Too Big to Save, Robert Pozen develops principles for evaluating the government bailout efforts on a financial crisis. Pozen explains why the taxpayers will take most of the fall if the banks fail and we go into a recession. He confirms that financial officials will use prefer stocks compared to common stocks because they wanted to not nationalize the banks and to keep capitalism. Pozen presents an idea on how the United States financial regulation should be structured in the future. Since there are different proposals and perspectives, everyone will not agree on every proposal but this shows how we can evaluate our economy and how it should

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

By allowing banks to become “too big to fail”, the failure of one leads to massive repercussions for the entire economy. In a contrasting environment where many small institutions exist, the implosion of one bank will not have this far-reaching, catastrophic impact. In recent years, reforms have taken place that limit a company’s ability to be “too big to fail”. In the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008, measures to revitalize the financial system included the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protect Act of 2010, named after U.S Senator Christopher J. Dodd and U.S Representative Barney Frank. The Act aimed to increase regulation and transparency in an industry that had so clearly lacked them and minimize future risk in the

The Dodd-Frank Act put a considerable burden on financial regulators whom have to work out the details in order to implement its vision. It includes a variety of points relating to the prevention of a future crisis (Kim & Muldoon 2015). Some of these major points include: (1) The creation of a new Financial Stability Oversight Council, comprising existing regulators, to be responsible for overseeing any financial institution or set of market circumstances determined to be likely to result in risk to the overall economy, (2) A reallocation of banking oversight responsibility among the Federal Reserve System, the Comptroller of the Currency, and the FDIC, requiring the Federal Reserve Board to supervise nonbank financial companies “that may

From a macroeconomic perspective, banks and other financial institutions are of critical importance. Not only do they make loans to homeowners and businesses, but these institutions make loans to each other and also influence the money supply. With this in mind, the government as well as the general population have a great interest in insuring the stability of these institutions. So, in our case, when banks are seriously threatened with collapse, even through fault of their own, the state has an ethical duty to ensure their survival through any means necessary. This is a consequence of the deep connections these institutions have with all facets of our society. One clear ramification would be decreased access to loans, if a bank is failing, it will be more hesitant or even cease to make loans to homeowners and small businesses. What is more devastating is the effect this will have on our

Firstly, the Dodd–Frank Act pushes forward the reformation of America's financial regulatory system. Several new regulatory authorities are set up to enhance the government supervision and administration of the industry. The Financial Stability Oversight Council is established to identify material risks to financial stability, with the support from Office of Financial Research. Moreover, Fed is entitled to exercise additional superintendence beyond banks.

The 1930s, the period of the Great Depression is perhaps the most unstable financial time in United States history. The decade where more than 40 percent of nation’s banks disappeared crippled the economy for years and caused the Senate to pass the Glass-Steagall Act (part of the U.S. Banking Act of 1933). The main purpose of the legislation was to separate commercial and investment banking, limiting commercial banks’ securities and activities within commercial banks and securities firms and to restore confidence in the U.S. banking system. For the next 30 or so years, there was a substantial government safety net and government played a huge role regulating the economy and maintaining the aggregate demand through fiscal and monetary policies. (Arthur MacEwan. “Inequality, Power, and Ideology: Understanding the Causes of the Current Economic Crisis.” Real World Macro, Economic Affairs Bureau, Inc. November 2012.)

The reality of systemic risk made the task of regulating the financial system increasingly complicated, as the crises aren’t contained in one country or market. The extreme inter-dependence between the different agents is the main reason why we need regulation today, as some misconducts can cause a domino effect, affecting markets globally. The structure of the banking system in itself explains this process. In the finance industry, banks borrow money from other banks. If one bank fails, the one who lent the funds in the first place might also follow the same path, creating panic in the markets. The government’s first prerogative is to protect its citizens from these

In this essay I will be addressing the “Too Big To Fail” (TBTF) problem in the current banking system. I will be discussing the risks associated with this policy, and the real problems behind it. I will then examine some solutions that have been proposed to solve the “too big to fail” problem. The policy ‘too big to fail’ refers to the idea that a bank has become so large that its failure could cause a disastrous effect to the rest of the economy, and so the government will provide assistance, in the form of perhaps a bailout/oversee a merger, to prevent this from happening. This is to protect the creditors and allow the bank to continue operating. If a bank does fail then this could cause a domino effect throughout

This work will examine the case 'Banking Industry Meltdown: The Ethical Financial Risk Derivatives" and determine which moral philosophy is most applicable to an understanding of the banking industry meltdown and explain the rationale. The case study will be analyzed and white-collar crimes considered as to whether they are different in any substantive manner from other more blue-collar crimes. This study will determine and discuss the role that corporate culture played in banking industry scenario and the response will be supported with specific examples. This work will postulate how leaders within the banking industry could have used their influence to avert the industry meltdown.