Sorry I am not a economist or in finance and this is not politics.ie so I will not offer my opinions on Australian banking regulations . Except to say that the big four banks are always lobbying the government to relax the regulations and the 4 piller policy and the government keeps on saying no . The smaller banks also cry to the government about the big four as they ind it harder to compete with them .

now we say ‘lets copy the canadians on regulation, the spaniards on capital provisioning’ and yet we don’t copy anybody on enforcement, in fact, that is the single unifying inadequacy across all regulatory bodies, they fail - far too often - to punish early and often, instead waiting until we have massive issues that result in huge failures (Bear Stearns/Lehman).

so make all the laws in the world, they aren’t worth a penny if nobody enforces them, we’ll just end up with a lame duck who touts a bigger rule book around.

regulators need inspectors and regular inspection of regulated firms, it has nothing to do with ‘new ways of doing things’ it just means stepping out of the comfort of Dame St. and out into the covered firms.

“The aim for the day is to explore finance through the correct balance between Economics, Politics and Culture, so of course cultural activities will be part of the agenda,” say organisers, members of the Anthroposophical Society in Ireland.

Charles Middleton, CEO of Triodos Bank UK, and economics author Michael Spence, of Emerson College, are among the speakers giving presentations as part of this one-day seminar. Triodos UK, a subsidiary of the ethical, Dutch-based Triodos Bank, is in 13% growth for first half-year of 2009.

Music and drama are opening and after lunch activities as leitmotifs to the weighty issues tackled by the event. The seminar will look at why inherent flaws in the conceptions underpinning old financial models doomed them to failure, the reasons (some obvious, some less so) why these bad patterns should not be repeated, and how more ethical financial and banking models can be both profitable and do good for society as a whole. We will reconsider basic facts such as: what “the economy” is, how it has evolved, and how it might be better organised to fulfil its role as an important – but not the only – factor in society, so that it neither dominates nor is dominated by either the cultural or the political realm.

The seminar will take place at The Sophia Centre, 25 Cork St, Dublin 8, from 9.30am. Tickets for the 1-day seminar are available at €60 and include all lectures, organic lunch and refreshments. Places are limited. Pre-booking is essential @ tel 050542830/email: bookings@anthroposophy.ie
Please go to http://www.anthroposophy.ie/ethical_finance for more information.

is there any specific regulation which you think helped the Aussie banks stay out of trouble? As i said, i think it should be easier to find regulatory strengths in those that avoided trouble rather than weakness in those that failed, given that SO many different regulatory regimes seemed to be caught out in this whole mess.

The Aussies avoided recession by having a big stimulas package and tight regulation of its banks . The banks here ( Australia ) have lobbied intensively against these regulations and successive governments have said no .

So just wallpaper really designed to instil confidence into a system that was bad and deliberately made worse by insiders to shear as many sheep as possible.

On Nama, a much more important point since the Irish government will drive a horse and four through the best rules in the world, whenever it wishes, there is an interesting possibility that requires a courageous President. A. 13 of the Constitution. The power to dissolve Dail Eireann. Reserved to Mrs Mary McAleese on the advice of the Taoiseach. It is her power, not BIFFO’s! She can decide to call the election. For a debt the size of Nama, I truly believe she should. If the new Dail passes someting similar then refer to the S Ct.

surely the best way to address the banking sector vulnerabilities is to look at the developed world banking sectors which DIDNT get into trouble, ie Spain, Canada, Australia. Ok, the Aussies didnt even have a recession, so may not be able to glean too much from them, but the Cannucks and the Spanish surely have some good ideas, namley the counter cyclical reserve buffering of Spain and the mandatory mortgage insurance of the Canadians. I’m no regulatory expert, but this seems a very sensible place to start the discussion.

The G20 won’t provide details regarding specific regulatory changes, they make policy recommendations that are then picked-up and implemented by the financial stability board, the BIS and the International Accounting Standards Board, etc

The Turner Review is a report put out by the FSA in the UK last Spring. It has some specific details about how counter-cyclical capital provisions would work. It mainly picking up on the statistical model the Bank of Spain has been using. These sorts of counter-cyclical capital buffers would, however, make it easier for banks to manage their earnings (massage the accounting), so securities regulators will have some reservations.

Another idea is to set-aside retained earnings over the cycle so they can’t be paid out in dividends in the good years. You could call this an economic cycle reserve.

The biggest change from an Irish point of view might be moving away from the incurred loss model for loan provisions (wait until the crash to start setting aside provisions for losses) to an expected loss model — if this comes. The International Accounting Standards Board is already working on this. I don’t think they have a specific proposal up yet, but its on their agenda.