April 04, 2013

Bank regulators, by entitling “The Infallible”, are not behaving like good citizens, and neither is FT

Sir, in “Barclays and the entitlement culture”, April 4 you write that “banking is crucial for the functioning of the economy and banks should be good corporate citizens” and who can dispute that.

But let me again remind you, for the umpteenth time, that with their capital requirements for banks based on perceived risk, bank regulators are de-facto entitling “The Infallible” and thereby discriminating against “The Risky”, and this does not permitting banks to allocate economic resources efficiently.

And so when I compare how much FT loves to hit out at bankers, with how little it wants to criticize the bank regulators, and who should be good citizens too, you are revealing a bias that also allows us to question your good-citizen status.