October 17, 2006

Get the banks back into doing credits

Sir, the banks are there to provide a safe haven for savings but also to promote growth and distribute opportunities through their credits. Over the last decade we have seen an almost obsessive effort by regulators to drive out the risk from banks with none of them really giving an iota about the other two objectives. Are we then to be surprised that the whole credit giving business is going underground hiding out in hedge funds and other sort of murky places? You now propose that “Regulation must not hedge funds in” (October 17) and though we fully agree with what is said we still have a lingering feeling that what we really need to look for is how to get the banks back into doing credits. As the average central banker will never be able to comprehend that we also run risks trying not to run risks and that risk is what going forward is all about, diversifying the regulators might be a good place to start our quest.