In this talk, Hugo Banziger says that large banks are too complex to manage. He says that top management does not understand how complex banks make money and what risks they are taking.
Of course, if the bankers cannot understand their businesses, then regulators cannot understand, either.
Prince’s CDOs, Dimon’s whale, Lewis’s mortgages, O’Neill, Cayne, Fuld…the evidence is pretty concussive that bank CEOs don’t know their exposures
He makes some good points, and he knows what he’s talking about. Some of his points:
a) banks should be more clear about what they do. Why hasn’t this happened already? Banks still get away with being black boxes. That was the easiest reform of all.
b) megabanks enjoy no economies of scope. Housing an investment bank and a retail bank in the same bank is like merging Tiffany’s and Wal-mart because they’re both retailers.
c) in an investment bank housed within a deposit institutional, the cheap deposit base will ultimately be used to fund the investment bank’s worst assets. Citigroup is the best example of this.
d) structural reforms (splitting investment and deposit banking) is the only real solution; the regulations are too complex to ever be enforced or understood. “Basel III is nonsense.”