London tribunal to shed light on UBS
December 11, 2011--UBS is braced for more revelations about the inner workings of its London office this week, as a tribunal begins to hear evidence over an alleged $42m fraud that sparked investigations in India and the UK.
Two former UBS employees, including the former head of one of its seven international desks that managed wealthy clients’ portfolios, on Monday begin their appeal against fines that the UK financial regulator wishes to impose.
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Source: FT.com
Q3 economic growth at 8.2 pct as CAD dips to $4.2 bln in October
December 11, 2011--Turks woke up to a bright morning on Monday as official figures suggested their country's economy continued the strong growth it attained following the global financial crisis in the third quarter of this year, coupled with a smaller current account deficit (CAD) in October compared to a month earlier.
According to the Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat), Turkey's gross domestic product (GDP) expanded by 8.2 percent in the July-September period, marking the eighth quarter in a row the country's economy has grown. The third quarter growth rate was way beyond the market expectation of 6.3 percent. “That much expansion made us the second-fastest growing economy worldwide, after China, in the third quarter. We expect our economy to grow no less than 4 percent next year,” said Industry, Science and Technology Minister Nihat Ergün, speaking on a program broadcast by a private TV station shortly after the announcement was made.
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Source: Todays Zaman
Print new notes, avoid panic: a guide to escaping the euro
December 10, 2011--If disaster strikes, how exactly does a eurozone nation hit the emergency escape button on the euro?
Once considered an outlandish scenario, it is no longer taboo among economists.
Whether it is the entire euro project collapsing or just one country jettisoning the single currency, analysts agree on rule number one: Prevent panic.
If the currency itself implodes, eurozone authorities could no longer recognise the euro as a common currency, said Paulo Reis Mourao of the University of Minho in Braga, Portugal.
"This would trigger a series of procedures that would require national central banks to issue currencies again," he said.
The old currencies have been destroyed, even if Europeans are estimated to have kept a fair bit of the old money in their drawers: the equivalent of 6.8 billion euros in German marks, 1.7 billion euros in pesetas, 1.3 billion euros in lira and 600 million euros in French francs.
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Source: EUbusiness
S&P Places London Stock Exchange On Watch On Italian Exposure
December 9, 2011--Standard & Poor's Friday put the London Stock Exchange Group PLC's (LSE.LN) long-term credit rating on review due to the company's exposure to Italian banks through its clearinghouse subsidiary in the country.
S&P said the creditworthiness of these Italian counterparts has been deteriorating over the past several months and that a default of a major customer could cause a solvency problem at its Cassa di Compensazione e Garanzia clearinghouse.
The LSE is vertically integrated across the trading cycle in Italy, with its Borsa Italiana exchange, CC&G clearinghouse and Monte Titoli depository.
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Source: Wall Street Journal
Commerzbank options for avoiding bailout 'limited'
December 9, 2011--Germany's Commerzbank still faces a major stress test: how to find 5.3 billion euros ($7.08 billion) in capital without a government bailout.
Banks need to inform regulators by January 20 how they will plug gaps in their balance sheet to achieve a core Tier 1 capital ratio of 9 percent by mid-2012, as required by the European Banking Authority (EBA).
But the Frankfurt-based lender, of which the state owns 25 percent, is running out of ways to manoeuvre through the crisis.
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Source: Reuters
FSA publishes the policy statement on the review of the covered bond regime
December 9, 2011--The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has published changes to its regulatory framework for UK regulated covered bonds. Changes to the RCB Regulations were published on 29 November 2011 by HM Treasury.
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Source: FSA.gov.uk
Stress Test Reveals European Banks Need More Capital
December 8, 2011-European regulators on Thursday told many of the region’s biggest banks, including Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank, to raise more capital as signs mounted that the European sovereign debt crisis might worsen.
With the region’s leaders gathering in Brussels in their latest bid to shore up the euro, the European Banking Authority announced that over all, banks needed to raise 114.7 billion euros ($152.7 billion) in the event the debt crisis was not resolved soon. That was more than the estimate of 106 billion euros in October.
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Source: NY Times
EBA says European banks need to raise 114.7bn euros: report
December 8, 2011--The European Banking Authority has concluded that European banks need to raise an extra 114.7 billion euros ($152.5 billion) in new capital to withstand future financial shocks, a report said Thursday.
The result of banking stress tests from the EU's London-based financial regulator, as reported by Bloomberg financial newswire, came on the first day of a crucial EU summit that is aimed at resolving the eurozone debt crisis.
Bloomberg also reported that banks in Germany needed to raise a total of 13.1 billion euros in fresh capital, while Italian and French lenders were required to raise 15.4 billion euros and 7.3 billion euros respectively.
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Source: EUbusiness
UK official holdings of international reserves November 2011
December 5, 2011--This monthly press notice shows details of movements in November in the UK’s official holdings of international reserves, which consist of gold, foreign currency assets and International Monetary Fund assets. These reserves are maintained primarily so that the UK Government’s reserves could be used to intervene to support Sterling, or the Bank of England’s reserves could be used to support the Bank’s monetary policy objectives.
If such interventions were to occur, then they would be shown and explained in this release. The Background note at the end of this release explains more about the reserves, and about these statistics.
In summary this month’s release shows that, in November 2011:
No intervention operations were undertaken. Movements in reserves and levels of reserves were as follows:
view the UK official holdings of international reserves November 2011
Source: HM Treasury
SIX Swiss Exchange welcomes another ETF issuer entering the Swiss market with five products- New ETF provider: Ossiam
December 5, 2011--The addition of French provider Ossiam brings the number of ETF issuers on SIX Swiss Exchange to 15 and makes five new ETFs - tradable from today - available to investors:
Ossiam ETF EURO STOXX 50® Equal Weight NR
Ossiam ETF STOXX® Europe 600 Equal Weight NR
Ossiam ETF iSTOXXTM Europe Minimum Variance NR
Ossiam ETF US Minimum Variance NR
Ossiam ETF US Minimum Variance NR
Bruno Poulin, CEO of Ossiam, said: "We are very proud to list our first ETFs in Switzerland. First of their kind, they give access to transparent investment strategies with complementary risk profiles that are easy to integrate into global portfolio allocation. The Minimum Variance strategy aims to offer investors an optimised solution seeking lower volatility at a competitive price. In addition, we chose to develop ETFs on equally-weighted indices. This is a very simple way to build better-diversified portfolios and avoid the concentration and trend-following bias of market-cap weighted indices."
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Source: SIX Swiss Exchange
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