PCBC Publishes Second Report on UK Banking Reform
On 11 March 2013, the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards (PCBS) published its second report on banking reform in the UK.
The second report addresses the UK government’s response to the first report of the PCBS and specifically the suggestions made therein in relation to banking reform. It makes a number of recommendations and observations, including:
- Independent Review: the PCBS encourages the government to implement a fully independent review of the workings of the ring-fencing mechanism, and not just a regulator review as currently proposed. This, the PCBS claims is “wholly inadequate” and amounts to no more than the “regulator marking its own examination paper”;
- Full industry–wide structural separation: despite the government’s rejection, the PCBS continues to believe that the Banking Reform Bill should include legislation which would enable full structural separation of the banking industry if the independent review of the workings of the ring-fencing mechanism proposed above concluded that this were necessary;
- Ownership structures: the PCBS is ‘disappointed’ that the government has chosen not to restrict the ability of an investment bank to own a ring-fenced bank; and
- Leverage Ratio – the PCBS regards the case for maintain the acceptable leverage ratio of a bank at 3% (i.e. 33 times leveraged) as “extremely weak” and continues to press for a 4% (i.e. 25 times leveraged) limit.
The PCBS intends to publish its final report by mid-May 2013.
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