MidnightCall Magazine
In this issue:
- Before the Last Flood — By Norbert Lieth
- Gaza Flotilla: Aggression or Self-Defense? — By Arno Froese
- Far East AsiaTrendsToday – Part III:Geo-prophecy or Geopolitics? — By Wilfred Hahn
News From Israel MagazineIn this issue:
- The Myth of the Al-Aqsa Mosque: Part 1 — By Herbert Novitsky
- ON THE HORIZON:
- Obama Honors Jewish Heritage Month
- Building an Electronic Human Brain
- ‘Iran Critics Must Get Rid of Nukes,’ Says Turkish PM
- Israel Joins Prestigious OECD Club
- Israel Accepted after Unanimous Vote
- Spy Satellite Successfully Launched
Government Pressures Banks to Consolidate
The German government has issued an ultimatum to the country’s seven Landesbanken to agree by July to consolidate the troubled state-owned banking sector or face exclusion from Berlin’s plan to take toxic assets off banks’ books.
For the first time, Berlin had “a very good chance” of forcing the Landesbanken to shrink their balance sheets and merge into “one, two or three” banks by 2012, an official said. They would be “German players with some European scope.”
The merger of the sector into one federally owned Landesbank would create one of the world’s biggest banks by assets, although any resultant entity would have to shrink rapidly.
The Landesbanken are wholesale banks with their roots in supporting regional companies and economies. But many have come undone after expanding into high-risk overseas investments. They account for the bulk of the €816bn ($1,082bn) of toxic and illiquid assets afflicting Germany’s banking sector.
“The federal government does not have any preference as to how the Landesbanken consolidate,” an official said.
“But we want a clear and binding agreement that they will do so by the time we sign-off on bad-bank legislation in July.”
Consolidation has been discussed for years but always failed because governments of the regional states feared a loss of prestige, influence and jobs.
Financial Times, 4 May 2009, pg. 12
Germany, a socialist-governed nation and the world’s biggest exporter, is forcing its financial institutions to consolidate. This means increased stringent government regulation. No more “toxic” loans and high-risk banking practices.
But Germany is not alone. Virtually all banks across the world must re-adjust and re-regulate in order to be an effective player in the new New World Order.