New European Union rules on bank rescues, aimed at ending spectacular bailouts with public money, are already facing a political backlash on worries they may end up hurting small, unsophisticated investors. The EU's Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive, due to become fully effective on January 1, makes shareholders, creditors and even large depositors liable for the losses of a failing bank before any public money is used to save the lender.
-- New rules take effect on January 1
The directive was a central part of Europe's response to the global financial crisis, which saw hundreds of billions of euros of public money having to be ploughed into failing lenders, including Britain's Royal Bank Bank of Scotland and Germany's Commerzbank. Only days before the new rules go live, concerns about the high political and economic cost of imposing losses on small savers have come to the fore, with Italy offering an example of how things can go wrong. Around 10,000 Italians lost money they had invested in the bonds of four local banks that were rescued last month. One pensioner took his own life after seeing his savings go up in smoke. Some European policy makers are already calling for the new rules to be phased in more gradually and Italy's central bank governor said they should be applied "reasonably".
The Italian government is looking for ways to compensate savers for a portion of their losses, arguing that some of them might have been missold high-risk products such as subordinated bonds. Holders of such debt are repaid only after senior creditors if a bank gets into difficulty. "If retail investors are missold subordinated debt, then you have a case to argue the new regime simply shifts the burden from the taxpayers to small savers," said Jonathan Herbst, a partner at law firm Norton Rose Fulbright in London.
Using public money to reimburse such investors would go against the spirit, if not the letter, of the new rules - namely to shield taxpayers - and may set a precedent for future bank rescues. This would risk leaving governments on the hook again for at least a share of future bank bailouts, reinforcing a vicious circle between private lenders and public finances that worsened the euro zone's crisis.
Gunnar Hokmark, a Swedish member of the European Parliament who was instrumental in piloting the new rules, said that no exceptions from bail-in should be allowed for bondholders. It could also give banks more leeway to misbehave. "The legislation is a way of reducing the burden on governments and of forcing owners and investors to be vigilant about the banks they are investing in," said the centre-right politician.
The European Commission said the problems in Italy had been caused by citizens not understanding or not receiving sufficient explanations about the financial products they had bought, not by the new regime. Italy, where banks have long relied on the big private wealth of households to sell their own debt, is considering banning the sale of junior bonds to retail investors.
Britain already prohibits selling Additional Tier 1 notes, which can be converted into equity under certain conditions, to such customers. More may be needed to fully protect consumers, though. Pension funds and other retail-oriented investment managers own vast amounts of assets on behalf of small savers that could be used in bank rescues.
While these positions are taken by professionals, it is open to question whether the final investors are adequately informed about the risks involved and whether they should be exposed to this type of asset at all. However, restricting the pools of buyers too far could also hurt the economy, as it would push up funding costs for banks, reducing their ability to lend.
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