The Banking and Finance Law Institute is delighted to announce details of the London Financial Regulation Seminar, an inter-disciplinary and inter-collegiate group of experts specialising in financial regulation are holding a series of seminars, and more occasional conferences, on topics relating to this field.

'Completing Banking Union' - Thomas Huertas, University Frankfurt, Center for Financial Studies, Institute for Law and Finance and SAFE

Thomas Huertas will present his new paper on ‘Completing banking union’. To complete banking union, there should be a single European deposit insurance scheme (EDIS) alongside the single supervisor and the single resolution authority. This would ensure uniformity across the Eurozone and facilitate the removal of barriers to the mobility of liquidity and capital within the single market. That in turn would promote efficiency in the banking sector and in the economy at large — just at the time that the EU needs to boost growth in order to remain competitive with the US and China. The EDIS promise to promptly reimburse insured deposits at a failed bank in the Eurozone should be unconditional. But who will stand behind that commitment? Who is the “E” in EDIS? Is its promise credible, even in a crisis? If a deposit guarantee scheme fails to deliver what people expect, panic would very likely erupt. Instead of strengthening financial stability, deposit insurance could destroy it. Yet this is the risk that current proposals pose. They create the impression that there will be a single deposit guarantee scheme. There will not. Instead, there will be a complex set of liquidity and reinsurance arrangements among Member State schemes. These defects need to be remedied. To do so, the paper proposes creating a European Deposit Insurance Corporation (EDIC) alongside national schemes. For banks that meet EDIC’s strict entry criteria and decide to become members, EDIC will promise to reimburse promptly — in the event the member bank fails — 100 cents on the euro in euro for each euro of insured deposits, regardless of the Eurozone Member State in which the bank is headquartered. In effect, the single deposit guarantee scheme would be created via migration to EDIC rather than mutualisation of existing schemes. This would increase the mobility of capital and liquidity and lead to a convergence of interest rates across the Eurozone. That in turn will improve the effectiveness of monetary policy, foster integration and promote growth.

Dr. Thomas F. Huertas is currently Senior Fellow at the Center for Financial Studies and Adjunct Professor at the Institute for Law and Finance, both at the Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt, Germany. Previously he was a partner at EY, where he chaired the firm‘s Global Regulatory Network and advised banks on strategic and regulatory issues. Prior to joining EY, he was Alternate Chair of the European Banking Atuhority and Member of the Executive Committee at the UK Financial Services Authority. He also held various senior positions at Citigroup. He has published extensively on issues in financial regulation, especially resolution and banking union (EU). He holds a Ph.D. In Economics from the University of Chicago.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3446809

Programme:

16:45 Registration in Reception

17:00-18:30 Seminar in Room 3.1

London Financial Regulation Seminar - Thomas Huertas