Banks

Royal Bank of Scotland in the lion’s den of the financial crisis

28 June 2018 - by Chiara Filoni, Christine Berry

10 years following the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers’ and the European financial crisis, we publish an interview with Christine Berry, formerly a researcher at the New Economics Foundation and campaigner against the bailout and the privatization of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS). The bank (...)
How to Socialize the Banking Sector

14 June 2018 - by Eric Toussaint, Patrick Saurin

Because capitalists have demonstrated just how far they are willing to go, taking risks (risks whose consequences they refuse to be held accountable for) and committing crimes for the sole purpose of increasing their profits, because their activities regularly result in heavy costs borne by (...)
What measures should a popular government take towards banks?

11 June 2018 - by Eric Toussaint, Patrick Saurin, Jeanne Chevalier

Economic heterodoxy and the programmes of deliquescent social democratic parties lack a structured project for the constitution of an alternative banking system. To remedy this, this contribution attempts to move towards a shared, coherent and operational proposal for an organizational plan for (...)
Asie du Sud : Nouveaux créanciers et nouvelles formes de péonage pour dette

25 avril 2018 - par Nathan Legrand

Le 7e atelier régional du CADTM Asie du Sud s’est tenu avec succès à Colombo, au Sri Lanka, du 6 au 8 avril 2018. Une quarantaine de délégué-e-s représentant divers mouvements sociaux (mouvements paysans, féministes, syndicalistes, etc.) se sont réunis, venant du Sri Lanka, mais aussi d’Inde, du (...)
Crony capitalism looms large on the Indian banking horizon

18 April 2018 - by Sushovan Dhar

The $1.77 billion Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam, possibly the biggest financial chicanery to have hit the Indian banking sector, is rocking the nation. Perpetrated by a diamond tycoon in collusion with bank officials, defrauding India’s second largest bank in such a manner seems astonishing. (...)
Understanding the crisis is too important to be left to specialists alone. This is why “Bankocracy” is so important

16 April 2018 - by Avishek Konar

The Great Recession, from the middle of 2007 onwards, has rocked the global economy. This has led to at least a couple of things. The legitimacy of neoliberalism in the west—qua ‘there is no other alternative’—has been shattered, and vast majority of people are now looking for other political (...)
Socialising the banks: some historical examples

21 March 2018 - by Eric Toussaint

How well a country controls its banks has a profound effect on its history. The Paris Commune was wrong to spare the Bank of France. Its main reserves and its governing body were within the territory of the Paris Commune. It was absolutely necessary to take control. By not doing so the (...)
Open doors for forces of finance

25 October 2017 - by Corporate Europe Observatory

ECB advisory groups are used as lobby platforms by the financial industry, as our new report shows. ’Open door for forces of finance at the ECB’ reveals that the advisory groups counselling the European Central Bank are dominated by representatives of some of the most influential global financial (...)
Time to dump greed for need

11 June 2017 - by Suresh Seshadri

A political scientist explains how banks and governments across the world are colluding to enlarge public debt For a country whose most famous son M.K. Gandhi once said, “The world has enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed,” India’s contemporary banking sector crisis (...)
Opening the vaults: the use of tax havens by Europe’s biggest banks

7 April 2017 - by Oxfam

This report from Oxfam on the EU banking sector provides just a glimpse into the harm that tax abuse is causing across the world. The findings are stark: The 20 biggest European banks register around one in every four euros of their profits in tax havens, an estimated total of €25bn in 2015. (...)
The battle over Sweden’s Bank Resolution Fund

1 April 2017 - by Daniel Munevar

Over the last few weeks a public battle has erupted between the Swedish government and the largest bank in the country, Nordea. The struggle between government and bank revolves around the intention of the former of increasing the contribution of financial institutions to a special resolution (...)
2007-2017: Causes of a Ten-Year Financial Crisis

30 March 2017 - by Eric Toussaint

The first institutions specializing in mortgage loans started to default in the US in February-March 2007. According to a report published by the Union of Swiss banks (UBS) in March 2017, “between 2002 and 2008, global debt of the corporate, household, government and financial sectors (...)
A Review of Bankocracy

27 March 2017 - by Collin G. Matton

Financial experts, political pundits, the popular press, and even Hollywood directors have dissected the financial crisis of 2008. Sadly, not much has changed since then to prevent it from occurring again. So why read yet another autopsy report, even one as well documented as Eric Toussaint’s (...)
The colossus with the feet of clay that was Monte dei Paschi di Siena

9 March 2017 - by Chiara Filoni

A little over a year after the bail-in [1] of four small banks in central Italy, the country’s banking problems are far from solved. On 23 December, Italy awoke to €20 billion in additional public debt on its balance sheet: a hangover from which they will not be able to recover if the authorities (...)
“The Greek government and banks try to take away our homes every Wednesday at civil tribunals”

26 January 2017 - by Eva Betavatzi, Filippos Filippides

Prior to Greece’s joining the EEC (European Economic Community) in 1981, Greek banks granted mortgages with very high interest rates, reaching up to 25%. With the country’s entry into the EEC, rates dropped to 16%. Then, as soon as the euro was adopted, mortgages grew exponentially, allowing (...)
Some home truths about banks, pensions and Greek debt

10 January 2017 - by Anouk Renaud

On the 5th, 6th and 7th of November, the Truth Committee on Greek Public Debt met again in Athens to carry on its investigation. After studying the Greek public debt and in particular the Troika’s loan in 2010, the Committee enquired into the functioning of the Greek banking system, which is (...)
Banks are responsible for the crisis in Greece

9 January 2017 - by Eric Toussaint

The present study shows that the Greek crisis that broke out in 2010 originated in private banks, not in excessive public spending. The so-called bail-out was designed to serve the interests of private bankers and those of dominant countries in the Eurozone. Greece adopting the euro played a (...)
Continuing risks in the financial system at the start of 2017

2 January 2017 - by Myriam Vander Stichele

The stock market indexes and derivatives markets are again showing a higher level of “exuberance” than when the financial crisis started to unfold in 2007 in the US. The financial system seems to have survived instability shocks from the Chinese financial markets in early 2016, and, later in the (...)
The ECB’s ‘quantitative easing’ funds multinationals and climate change

20 December 2016 - by Corporate Europe Observatory

Corporate Europe Observatory has decoded the list of beneficiaries of the European Central Bank’s corporate bond purchasing scheme. The results are disturbing, unless you think oil, fancy cars, motorways, champagne, and gambling are good places to put public money. In June 2016 the European (...)
Iceland after the General Elections on October 29

13 December 2016 - by Lexit Network

Iceland recently held new elections following the resignation of its Prime Minister due to the Panama Papers. In an interview with the activist Árni Daníel Júlíussson, the Lexit Network gathered updated information on the current situation in Iceland. We spoke also about the crisis, crisis (...)
LADA - Local Authority Debt Audits

17 November 2016 - by Debt Resistance UK

Debt Resistance UK (DRUK) is a group of researchers, activists and campaigners dedicated to challenging the narrative of debt as apolitical and inevitable. This booklet introduces our research into how bankers, brokers and advisors have tricked local authorities into taking out expensive, risky (...)
BRICS banking and the debate over sub-imperialism

15 September 2016 - by Patrick Bond

ABSTRACT: Notionally funded at $100 billion each, the BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA) and New Development Bank (NDB) represent ‘sub-imperial’ finance, insofar as by all indications they fit into – instead of providing alternatives to – the prevailing world systems of sovereign debt and (...)
Barroso and Goldman Sachs - a dangerous liaison

29 July 2016 - by Corporate Europe Observatory

The news that José Manuel Barroso will become non-executive chairman at Goldman Sachs did not exactly come as a surprise. This is a man who presided over the European Commission for 10 years and, from the beginning, his leadership followed a corporate agenda, with its close links to the biggest (...)
Italy’s banking problems: A useful guide to the implications of “bail-in”

24 July 2016 - by Daniel Munevar, Chiara Filoni

Obscured since the beginning of the crisis by more dramatic developments by banks elsewhere in Europe and the US, Italian banks have long dragged issues of low profitability and near insolvency. Now, after the surprising results of the Brexit vote, they have been identified as the trigger of (...)
Éric Toussaint: ‘If governments do not want citizen debt audits, it is because they are hiding something’

7 June 2016 - by Eric Toussaint, Maialen Mariscal Ruben Plaza

According to Éric Toussaint, States should default on their payments in order to renegotiate and radically reduce their debts. San Sebastian (Basque Country – Spain) – Éric Toussaint staunchly campaigns for the cancellation of a State’s debt every time it is shown to be illegal, illegitimate or (...)