Ewart S Williams: The MSME evolution
Address by Mr Ewart S Williams, Governor of the Central Bank of Trinidad & Tobago, at the
Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Conference, Port-of-Spain, 16 September 2009.
* * *
Let me first of all thank the Chamber of Industry and Commerce and the Nova Committee for
the invitation to participate in and to make a few remarks at this 2009 Conference on Micro,
Small and Medium-sized Enterprises. I want to say from the outset that the Central Bank
considers micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) as critical to Trinidad and
Tobago's current and future prospects. Last year, we engaged a local firm to examine the
structure, performance and networks of MSME and to make recommendations for improving
its performance.
This firm has since submitted its draft final report along with a set of recommendations which
we are currently assessing. I should also add that the Financial Literacy Programme has also
been actively involved in the small business sector and is spearheading a project on Living
the Entrepreneurial Dream. This project has placed emphasis on three core areas: (a)
starting a business, (b) keeping and managing financial records and (c) sourcing assistance
for the business. To assist budding entrepreneurs, the project is currently finalizing three
booklets, which are expected to be launched before the end of the year.
As I examine the agenda for today's proceedings, I can't help but notice that your speakers
are far more ably qualified to address the specific issues affecting MSMEs in Trinidad and
Tobago. Accordingly, in my brief remarks today, I want to focus on the bigger picture and
specifically on how MSME development is becoming even more urgent given our current
economic circumstances and prospects.
Over the past decade, Trinidad and Tobago has been doing relatively well in a
macroeconomic sense. Real economic growth between 2000 and 2008 has averaged around
6.0 per cent a year; the fiscal position has been healthy; international reserve holdings have
increased steadily and the exchange rate has remained stable. This vibrant economic
performance has largely been built on the back of the energy sector which still remains the
dominant sector accounting for approximately 40 per cent of GDP and around 60 and 90 per
cent of government revenue and exports, respectively.
The energy sector growth facilitated a boom in fiscal revenues and expenditures, the latter
providing the impetus for vibrant activity in the non-energy sector.
In these last few years, we have seen an explosion in construction activity, both public and
private sector construction, in banking and finance as well as in retail distribution. As you
know, there was a significant growth in employment, so much so that we have had to
import labour from neighbouring countries and from further afield.
But, ladies and gentlemen, our economic climate is undergoing profound changes and these
changes may be structural, not merely cyclical. Our economy has already begun to
experience economic decline for the first time since 1993; while oil prices have begun to
creep up from the lows reached in late 2008, gas prices, which directly determine about 80
per cent of our energy tax revenues are at their lowest level in several years. Moreover, the
experts tell us that, given the chronic oversupply in world markets, gas prices could remain
depressed for a while. And to top it all, there are downside risks as regards the level of our
gas reserves.
While it can be argued that some degree of diversification has occurred over the years, most
of this has taken place within the energy sector. Trinidad and Tobago has now moved
from simply being an oil-based economy to one that produces a relatively wide range of
energy products including natural gas, methanol, iron and steel, urea and ammonia. Outside
of energy, the pace of diversification has been slow.
In summary, notwithstanding our impressive achievements, it is clear that we are confronted
with many challenges in sustaining our level of economic growth and in addressing rising
economic and social inequalities. To meet these challenges, we urgently need to diversify
our sources of economic growth and to raise the efficiency of resource allocation. A
potential source for growth is the micro, small and medium enterprises sector, which
has contributed importantly to growth and job creation in the past.
The MSME sector has made remarkable strides over the past few years. Data from the study
commissioned by the IADB and the Central Bank estimate that there are now about 18,000
MSMEs, employing about 200,000 workers and contributing around 28 per cent of GDP.
These figures testify to the Government's considerable efforts through NEDCO and BDC as
well as to the work of private sector institutions such as the Nova Committee of the Chamber
and various NGOs.
Notwithstanding these achievements, if we are to realize the full developmental potential of
this very important sector we need to modify our approach somewhat - specifically, we need
to introduce a more entrepreneurial model.
An article by the NOVA Committee, published in the latest issue of CONTACT, cited the case
of India where the SME sector is being challenged to move to the next level of development.
The same article lamented that many of our SMEs seem to have no interest in moving
beyond the micro and small classifications, preferring instead to remain in their comfort
zones.
The new model for MSME development requires a shift in thinking by policy makers. It
requires a change whereby the goal is not merely to earn a minimum income but to create
jobs and wealth. It requires that our policy makers look beyond simply the creation of new
MSMEs to encouraging a concentrated focus on productivity and competitiveness. The new
model requires small businesses to broaden their view of the available economic space from
the neighbourhood and the community to the country and even the region.
An essential aspect of the new model is the active promotion of an entrepreneurial culture.
More small business people need to see themselves as entrepreneurs, prepared to take
risks and with an interest in innovation and competitiveness, which, as you know, are integral
features of entrepreneurial behaviour. Some of this could be learned late but empirical
evidence suggests that there is a strong case for making business education a more integral
part of our high school curriculum. And as I heard one commentator say a few days ago, "we
need more people to come out of tertiary education, not looking for the security of a job but
actually prepared to use the ideas that they have acquired in their studies and through
research at university, to get involved in entrepreneurial behaviour".
One step in this direction is for our tertiary institutions to become more actively involved
in promoting innovation and in transforming these applications into viable businesses. I
would acknowledge that some of this has begun to happen on a limited scale through
programmes being introduced by the University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT) and E-Teck
that provide a business incubator for innovative ideas. However, if entrepreneurship is to
take deeper roots, this process has to become part and parcel of our entire tertiary
education system and our MSME strategy. The available evidence on a global scale
suggests that entrepreneurship tends to flourish in those countries where there are strong
and sustained linkages between innovations in Universities and the business environment.
While we can all point to success stories in economies like the US and Japan, there is no
reason why we cannot develop our own success stories here.
Obviously entrepreneurship and innovation would add up to very little if credit isn't available
to finance their realisation.
In most countries, inadequate credit availability has been a major impediment to SME
development. The reasons behind the chronic lack of access to finance for MSME sectors in
most developing countries are well-known. One is the entrenched perception that lending to
MSMEs is inherently risky. Another is a long-standing credit culture that is biased towards
collateral. Regulatory policies also perpetuate the "collateral bias" as non-secured lending is
often discouraged. The overemphasis on collateral constrains the availability of credit to
MSMEs, even when cash flows are adequate to service bank loans at commercial interest
rates.
This situation invariably leaves the sector exposed to public sector financing arrangements
which are very often insufficient, unreliable and subject to non-commercial considerations.
Fortunately, our situation is changing. More finance is being made available by the public
sector institutions - NEDCO and the Small Business Corporation. More importantly, some
private sector institutions are also tailoring their operations to cater to the need of MSMEs,
while maintaining high loan processing standards. In particular, one commercial bank has
already recognized the potential of the small business sector and has developed a lending
programme specifically targeted to this sector.
Let me end, Ladies and Gentlemen with yet another reference to the CONTACT Magazine
which, incidentally, I think is an excellent issue. An article in the issue seems to suggest that
we are deluding ourselves into believing that we are blessed with high levels of native
creativity. Citing our carnival experience, the author asks whether we have done anything
truly ground breaking recently and whether our music and architecture, the range of goods
that we produce and our designs and services can legitimately be claimed as being truly
creative.
I happen to disagree with the view that we are not blessed with high levels of natural
creativity. I think that our challenge is to devise a framework that can deploy our creative
ideas in innovative ways to develop new businesses that are sustainable, employment
generating and even better still export earning.
Ladies and Gentlemen let me repeat my belief that building an entrepreneurial culture that
harnesses the untapped potential of the MSME sector will provide a solid platform for the
sustained diversification and development of our country in future years.
We need to rise to this challenge.
I am certain that this is going to be an excellent conference and I wish you every success in
today's deliberations.
Andrew G Haldane: Credit is trust
Speech by Mr Andrew G Haldane, Executive Director, Financial Stability, Bank of England, at
the Association of Corporate Treasurers, Leeds, 14 September 2009.
I would like to thank Paul Fullerton, Simon Hall and Salina Ladha for help in the preparation of this speech.
* * *
It is good to be back in Yorkshire. I say back because I grew up around 10 miles north of
here. When I left over 20 years ago, Leeds looked and felt very different to today. Nowhere is
the contrast greater than in the financial sector. In 1995, almost 74,000 people were
employed in financial and related business services, accounting for around 20% of
employment in Leeds. By 2009 this had risen to over 116,000, or around 30% of
employment. Today, Leeds has a legitimate claim to be the UK's second largest financial
centre.
A short history of banking in Yorkshire
The foundations for this success were laid much earlier. The history of banking in Yorkshire
dates back over 250 years.1 Pease and Co of Hull, established in 1754, are thought to be
Yorkshire's oldest private bank. In the same decade, banks were founded in Leeds and
Bradford. By the end of the 18th century, Yorkshire had a well-established network of over 40
banks in around 16 regional towns and cities.
In the first two decades of the 19th century, private banking in Yorkshire continued to thrive,
spreading to around 30 towns and cities. The financial crisis of 1825 brought an end to this
rapid growth. The crisis itself was interesting for its parallels with today. It was sourced in
sub-prime lending in (in this case South) America. As fears of loan losses rose, runs began
on banks throughout England, with more than a dozen institutions failing in Yorkshire alone.
The crisis brought reform of the banking industry in the form of the Joint Stock Banking Act of
1826. This removed the Bank of England's monopoly on joint stock banking. This had long
been a bone of contention among country banks, not least in Yorkshire. The Bank of England
itself opened its first branch in Yorkshire - here in Leeds, in fact - the following year in 1827.
This was acknowledgement of Leeds' emerging importance as a financial centre. Yet the
reception it received was, to say the least, somewhat mixed.
Local newspapers and businessmen attacked the Bank's attempt to spread its "pestilential
branches" into the regions.2 Bank of England notes were shunned by local shopkeepers. The
landlady of the Esk Inn near Whitby did so with the words:
"I'll ha' nought to do with them things, I know nought about them; now if it had
been a Simpson I would ha' changed it with pleasure"3
It is easy to imagine, though probably impossible to print, what she might have made of
Quantitative Easing.
In the period since, banking and finance in Yorkshire have grown steadily and successfully.
Among the success stories would be the Yorkshire Penny Bank. This was founded in 1859 in
Halifax as a means of saving for the working classes. In 1874, its first School Transfer
Department was opened to encourage saving by school children. "Take care of the Pence
and the Pounds will take care of themselves" intoned the bank's posters.
Such was the success of the school scheme that, by the end of the nineteenth century, the
majority of schoolchildren in Yorkshire had a savings account. The scheme aimed to educate
children from an early age on the benefits of thrift and financial planning. And having been
nurtured early, the relationship between bank and customer often lasted a lifetime. In 1959,
the Yorkshire Penny Bank became Yorkshire Bank which today remains one of the UK's
most successful medium-sized banks.
The mutual or building society sector's roots in Yorkshire are just as deep.4 Although the first
societies appeared in the Midlands in around 1775, within a decade Yorkshire had
established its first society, the Hill House Bank Building Club in 1785. By the end of the
century, numbers had swelled to around 50, mostly in the Midlands, Lancashire and
Yorkshire.
The early mutuals pooled savings to buy property for members and terminated once all
members' housing needs were satisfied - so-called "terminating societies". In 1844,
"permanent societies" were permitted, which allowed for a revolving set of both savers and
borrowers. But the mutuality principle remained - "to enable a working man to secure himself
in the course of a few years a dwelling-house as his own freehold property, as a home for
himself and family."5
Numbers of mutuals grew rapidly during the 19th century, reaching around 850 by 1850 and
over 1500 by 1875, with almost 100 in Yorkshire alone. Here in Leeds, the Leeds and
Holbeck Permanent Building Society was founded in 1875 and, having been renamed Leeds
Building Society in 2005, it remains in the top 10 building societies by size nationally.
Consolidation and, latterly, demutualization have reduced numbers over the past few
decades. Today, there are only a handful of independent, indigenous mutuals in the region.
But they remain some of the strongest in the country.
The success of Yorkshire's financial sector over this lengthy period is no fluke. A reading of
history reveals the same successful recipe being repeated. An awareness of, and
responsiveness to, the needs of the customer, whether saver or borrower. A focus on
longterm relationship-building, often starting from the earliest age. A recognition of the benefits of
mutualising both risks and returns. In short, the importance of banks being built, first and
foremost, on trust.
The crisis of trust
From the past, then, to the present. A year ago almost to the day, the investment bank
Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy in the United States. Activity across the globe, financial
and non-financial, froze. Recently, there are indications of some thawing. But a year on,
many economies around the world remain mired in recession. What explains the severity of
this crisis and how much longer can it be expected to last?
The words "credit crunch" contain the seeds of an explanation. In Latin, credit means trust.
So credit crunch is, in essence, a breakdown in trust. Between different parties at different
times, that loss of trust has been the root cause of the devastating impact felt globally since
the credit crunch began. It also explains why the road to recovery in credit, and thus in the
real economy, may be long and winding. In essence, events of the past two years can be
retold as a story of the progressive breakdown in trust.
The proximate cause of the crisis was a breakdown of trust between banks and households,
specifically sub-prime mortgage-holders in the United States. The upshot was a loss of
credit, and in many cases the homes, of these borrowers from 2006 onwards. Repossession
rates on US mortgages have more than tripled in the past two years (Chart 1). UK arrears
and default rates, although lower, are rising. Some borrowers are now rationed out of the
mortgage market. In July 2007, there were around 9500 sub-prime mortgage products being
advertised in the UK. Today, there are virtually none (Chart 2).
As losses on these mortgages and other toxic assets accumulated, trust among banks was
impaired. This saw a seizing-up of inter-bank money markets from the second half of 2007
onwards. Before the crisis, banks required about 10 basis points of compensation for making
a three-month loan to one another (Chart 3). By September 2007, that compensation
premium had risen tenfold to around 100 basis points. By September 2008, it had risen more
than thirty-fold from pre-crisis levels. It has since fallen back to around 35 basis points.
These persistent funding pressures have constrained banks' ability to lend to the real
economy.
Damaged by losses on assets and constrained by funding costs, questions began to be
raised during 2008 about banks' future profitability and, in some cases, viability. The equity
prices of banks tumbled, falling 86% on average for the major UK banks between February
2007 and March this year (Chart 4). In money terms, that is a loss of market capitalisation of
around £300bn, equivalent to 20% of annual UK GDP. Underlying these price falls was a
generalised loss of trust between banks and investors in banks, such as sovereign wealth
funds and mutual funds.
What explained this wholesale loss of trust? In the run-up to the crisis, banks' business
models were increasingly predicated on making loans for onward sale. Loans became
tradable securities and long-term relationships gave way to short-term transactions. The
perils of this practice were well understood by Michael Marks, founder of Marks and Spencer
and of course one of the region's greatest-ever entrepreneurs: "You either make things or
you sell them. Don't try both".
Banks tried both, making loans with an eye to subsequently selling them. This had
unintended, but in fact entirely predictable, consequences. Without skin in the game, banks'
due diligence became slipshod. The quality of tradable loans fell as their quantity rose.
Investors in these securities were not as canny as the landlady of the Esk Inn: they
purchased them in size even though "they knew nought about them". By the time the penny
had dropped for these investors, the pounds had not taken care of themselves. Global losses
on these securitised assets are now believed to lie anywhere up to £3 trillion.6 As losses
accumulated, trust in these securities was undermined and with it trust in the banks issuing
them.
As credit was cut, trust in the viability of some non-financial companies was questioned.
Corporate distress began to rise internationally during the course of 2008. And as corporate
distress rose, in particular after the failure of Lehman Brothers, distrust between companies
mounted. The stream of trade credit extended between firms dried to a trickle at the end
2008 and in the first part of 2009. At that time, a survey by the Bank's regional agents
reported that around a quarter of contacts had had to turn down potentially profitable orders
as a result of tighter trade credit.
This progressive hardening of the credit arteries also had dramatic effects between
countries. Cross-border flows of credit have reversed dramatically in the past year. "Home
bias" by investors - a lack of trust in foreign investments - has returned with a vengeance.
Cross-border lending by international banks grew by 20% per year between 2003 and 2007.
In 2008, it fell 5% (Chart 5). This has had adverse effects on UK companies, around a third
of whose borrowing comes from foreign lenders.
Through these successive waves, the world financial system found itself with almost every
link in the credit chain - in the chain of trust - having been weakened or broken. That is
evident in surveys of the public's trust in industry: banking and finance are firmly rooted to
the foot of the league table of trust, in the UK and internationally (Chart 6). That loss of trust
is mirrored in aggregate bank lending in the UK, in particular to companies, where annual
growth has fallen from a peak of 23% in March 2008 to around zero now (Chart 7). And this
has in turn been reflected in the largest and most synchronous global economic slowdown
since the Great Depression.
Confidence and credit
So how is trust, and thereby credit, to be restored? To date, the answer has been to rely on
the one sector whose credit has not been seriously questioned - governments and central
banks. There has been large-scale provision of government and central bank credit over the
past two years in an attempt to ease pressures and shore up breaks in the private sector
credit chain.
These interventions have been unprecedented in size during peacetime. The total potentially
on the table is in excess of $14 trillion.7 That is roughly $2000 for every man, woman and
child on the planet. Half of the world's 20 largest banks have needed direct government
support. Central bank balance sheets in the major financial centres, including in the UK, have
more than doubled in size. And deposit insurance schemes have been extended in at least
40 countries around the world.
Extending public sector credit on this scale relies on the deep pockets and prudence of our
grandchildren. It can be no more than a stop-gap - a temporary bridge - until private sector
trust can be restored. So far, the bridge has served its purpose. There are signs over recent
months from surveys that confidence is returning to banks, non-financial companies and
consumers. And there have been some signs of a turnaround in the housing, equity and
some debt markets.
It has been said that every recession in history has been associated with a collapse in
confidence.8 This time's was plainly no exception. So with confidence turning can we
anticipate an imminent return of credit to the economy?
Rising confidence among firms and consumers is a necessary condition for recovery. But it is
questionable whether it is sufficient. That is because confidence and trust are subtly different
concepts.9 Confidence derives from observable, authoritative proof. At the time of the failure
of Lehman Brothers, people struggled to make sense of the state of the economy and
financial system. Without a compass, they lost their financial bearings. Lacking authoritative
proof, confidence collapsed. As the banking system has since stabilised, people's bearings
have returned and with them confidence.
Trust is an altogether different animal. It is based on beliefs, not observable proofs. It is
grounded in perceptions rather than evidence. It is as much a psychological state as a
financial one.10 A clean balance sheet might instil confidence, but it need not repair trust.
Because it is a moral judgement, repairing trust can be a slow and painstaking business.
Moral compasses take rather longer to self-correct than magnetic ones. This has implications
for the path of recovery in the period ahead.
Historically, credit has tended to lag the recovery in output in the majority of recessions,
especially financial recessions. During the previous three major recessions in the UK - in the
1970s, 1980s and 1990s - credit to business recovered slowly and in some cases only
several years after the recovery in activity (Charts 8, 9 and 10). This is consistent with trust
between financial institutions and their customers being slower to recover than confidence
more generally.
Moreover, unlike the situation today, earlier recessions in the UK were not primarily the result
of financial factors. International evidence suggests that financial recessions have tended on
average to be both costlier and lengthier.11 Normal recessions have been associated with a
recovery in output to its previous peak after around 31⁄2 quarters. Recovery to peak output
following financial recessions has on average taken around 51⁄2 quarters (Chart 11).
Like its predecessors, lack of confidence may have "caused" this time's recession. But it is
lack of trust - and hence credit - that may shape the recovery. Based on past evidence, as
the Governor has noted recently, we might anticipate a protracted period of repair.
Repairing trust - the low road to reform
So what might be needed, beyond time, to repair trust in the financial system? A raft of
reforms to the financial system, nationally and internationally, is currently being assembled.
These measures will aim to strengthen banks' financial resources, risk management
practices and governance. They are about bringing regulatory rules into the 21st century.
high
This is the road to reform - for example, higher buffers of capital and liquidity and higher
standards of risk management. If successful, these reforms will help cleanse bank balance
sheets. It is an open question, however, whether these efforts will be sufficient to restore
public trust in the financial system.
One reason why regulation might not be the whole answer is that trust in financial regulation
is itself one of the casualties of crisis. Regulation is seen by some as part of the problem, not
the solution. More generally, in repairing public trust, it would be preferable if banks were
seen to be initiating root and branch reform themselves, rather than having it thrust upon
them by regulators.
This would be the low road to reform. Low because it would not require any new or complex
regulatory apparatus. Low because it would not need international negotiation or agreement
on the contractual fineprint. Instead, what it would require is a self-generated sea-change in
the structure and strategy of banking.
So what changes in structure and strategy might be desirable? Without suggesting definitive
size
answers, let me discuss three areas where further debate might be useful: banks' in
relation to the services they provide; banks' strategy in relation to their resilience; and banks'
governance in relation to the incentives this creates.
•
Structure - size versus service provision
Economies of scale typically arise in the production of goods and services which are
homogenous and replicable. Henry Ford applied this principle to car manufacture through his
Ford Motor Company, established almost a century ago. It was a success. That model has
since served many industries well.
But manufacturing loans is not the same as manufacturing cars. Loans are neither
homogenous nor replicable. Making loans relies on bespoke, customer-specific information.
This information is not obtained by computer algorithm or credit rating agency but through a
banking relationship, ideally a long-term one. Despite the advent of social networking,
economies of scale are not something we typically associate with long-term relationships.
So the economics of banking do not suggest that bigger need be better. Indeed, if
largescale processing of loans risks economising on the collection of information, there might
even be diseconomies of scale in banking. The present crisis provides a case study. The
desire to make loans a tradable commodity led to a loss of information, as transactions
replaced relationships and quantity trumped quality. Within the space of a decade, banks
went from monogamy to speed-dating.
Evidence from a range of countries paints a revealing picture. There is not a scrap of
evidence of economies of scale or scope in banking - of bigger or broader being better -
beyond a low size threshold.12 At least during this crisis, big banks have if anything been
found to be less stable than their smaller counterparts, requiring on average larger-scale
support.13 It could be argued that big business needs big banks to supply their needs. But
this is not an argument that big businesses themselves endorse, at least according to a
recent survey by the Association of Corporate Treasurers.14
Take Grameen Bank - not a household name in the UK, I realise. This grew out of a
microfinance project in Bangladesh which began in 1976.15 Grameen operates as a set of local
credit cooperatives, often comprising as few as five members. The bank's relationship with
its borrowers is bound not by legal contract but by trust. Like the Yorkshire Penny Bank a
century earlier, it aims to encourage saving by the poor and supports the education of the
children of borrowers and savers.
In some respects, Grameen Bank is about as basic and small-scale a set of banking
arrangements as it is possible to conceive. But its success is only too clear. From the most
modest of beginnings, Grameen Bank now operates in over 40 countries worldwide, with
over 2000 branches and over 7.5 million borrowers. Grameen is a local bank gone global.
Henry Ford grew an empire on scale economies, centralisation and replication. For the Ford
Motor Company, bigger was better. At around the same time, Alfred P Sloan of General
Motors was following a different business model. Size still mattered. But production was
decentralised and specialised. The focus was on customer needs supported by some of the
first-ever market research on their tastes. In the end, it was Sloan and General Motors whose
strategy was emulated around the world.
In meeting the future needs of the real economy, perhaps there is a case for more "Sloans"
and fewer "Fords" in banking. Perhaps there is a case for a strategic focus on the "local" as
much as the "global", for more micro-finance and less macro-finance. Perhaps it is time for
relationship-banking to make a comeback.
•
Strategy - diversity versus diversification
Customers require a basket of banking services. The provision of some of these services is
important for the wider economy; they are a quasi-public good. For example, the provision of
monetary services - basic banking - has a strong public good element. That is why depositor
protection, in the form of deposit insurance, is stipulated by the state in many countries.
Lending to households and companies can also be thought to contain a public good element.
Other functions performed by banks may provide more limited social benefits, though their
private benefit may be significant - for example, proprietary trading in complex instruments.
If scale economies in banking are weak, banking services could probably be equally well
provided by either a financial supermarket or a set of specialist banks. These different
structures might not, however, be equivalent from a risk perspective. The supermarket model
potentially does offer some risk benefits - the benefits of diversification. Profitable business
lines can compensate for temporarily non-profitable ones. What is lost on the swings may be
regained on the roundabouts.
This is a story about which we have heard much over the past few months, especially among
the biggest global banks. In the first half of this year, big losses on the banking book swings
have been more than offset by big gains on the trading book roundabouts. Diversification, we
were told, was paying dividends - and, indeed, bonuses.
But memories can be deceptively short. Rewind the clock one year. Then, it was trading
book losses that were eroding confidence in the banks. This in turn prompted fears about
some banks' solvency, aggravating the very recession which is now generating banking book
losses. Trading book gains may well be acting as a hedge today. But they are hedging a risk
they helped create.
All of this implies that business line diversifi