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Basel III: if ever there were three syllables that could bring a grown banker to tears, these are they. In the 15-plus years since the financial crisis, the western world has been through a protracted process of rewriting regulations to protect against another 2008. The last pieces of that puzzle — conceived by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision and known as Basel 3.1 — are now close to being slotted into place across the western world.
《巴塞尔协议III》(Basel III)：如果有三个字节能让一个成年银行家流泪，那就是它们。自金融危机爆发以来的15年多时间里，西方世界经历了一个漫长的过程，即修改监管法规，以防范另一场2008年危机。由巴塞尔银行监管委员会构思、被称为《巴塞尔协议3.1》(Basel 3.1)的最后一块拼图，如今已接近在整个西方世界落实到位。
Until recently, US banks thought they were set to come off worst. Federal Reserve vice-chair for supervision Michael Barr had gold-plated the Basel rules, provoking a fierce backlash from Wall Street’s finest. But that lobbying, and the placatory intervention of Fed chair Jay Powell, appears likely to leave US banks with a watered-down impact that will be very similar to their European rivals — an uplift of perhaps 10 per cent in their capital requirements compared with the 20 per cent or so previously predicted, according to bankers.
直到最近，美国的银行还认为自己将是受影响最严重的。美联储负责监管的副主席迈克尔•巴尔(Michael Barr)曾为巴塞尔规则镀金，引发了华尔街精英们的强烈反对。但银行家们表示，这种游说以及美联储主席杰伊•鲍威尔(Jay Powell)的安抚性干预，似乎可能会让美国银行的影响减弱至与欧洲竞争对手非常相似——对它们的资本金要求可能会提高10%，而此前的预测是20%左右。
The oddest feature of the US reforms is that most small and mid-sized banks will escape tougher treatment, despite the fact that it was precisely mid-sized regional banks that were the focus of depositor jitters last year, when the likes of Silicon Valley Bank and First Republic collapsed. (Only this month New York Community Bank needed an emergency capital infusion.) Yes, the definition of what constitutes a large bank has been expanded to anything greater than $100bn, rather than $250bn, but that still leaves thousands of lenders — all but the top 99 — to pose a potential systemic risk.
美国改革最奇怪的地方在于，大多数中小型银行将逃脱更严厉的处理，尽管去年硅谷银行和第一信托银行等倒闭时，正是中型地区银行成为储户恐慌的焦点。(就在本月，纽约社区银行需要紧急注资）。是的，大型银行的定义已扩大到1000亿美元以上，而不是2500亿美元，但仍有数千家贷款机构——除了前99家之外——构成潜在的系统性风险。
In Europe, less obvious dangers may accumulate. Last year, EU and UK banks and regulators felt quietly smug when the region’s institutions emerged unscathed from the market turmoil and client nervousness that brought down Switzerland’s Credit Suisse and the US regionals. But the way in which the EU is implementing Basel 3.1 — particularly the way it embeds a previously temporary provision giving capital relief to banks with insurance subsidiaries — is a cause for concern.
在欧洲，不那么明显的危险可能会不断积累。去年，瑞信和美国地区性银行因市场动荡和客户紧张而倒闭，但欧盟和英国的银行和监管机构却毫发无损，这让它们暗自得意。但欧盟实施《巴塞尔协议3.1》的方式令人担忧，尤其是其中包含了一项以前临时性的规定，即为拥有保险子公司的银行提供资本减免。
Policymakers argued that this so-called Danish Compromise was justified because insurers are also closely supervised financial institutions, so they should be treated as less risky investments in bank capital terms than other subsidiary holdings. But in essence the Danish Compromise — conceived during Denmark’s 2012 EU presidency — was a sop to help banks that owned insurance operations and found themselves stretched for capital amid the eurozone crisis.
政策制定者认为，这种所谓的“丹麦妥协方案”是合理的，因为保险公司也是受到密切监管的金融机构，因此，就银行资本而言，它们应被视为风险低于其他附属控股公司的投资。但从本质上讲，丹麦在2012年担任欧盟轮值主席国期间提出的《丹麦妥协方案》(Danish Compromise)，是为了帮助那些拥有保险业务、在欧元区危机中发现自己的资本捉襟见肘的银行。
Much of that stress came about because of the “doom loop” stemming from banks’ ownership of so much of the sovereign debt of their stressed home countries. The falling value of this debt led to bank losses, which then led to lending cutbacks, further hitting economies. Ironically, the Danish Compromise and the encouragement it gives to buy more bonds amplifies that risk. Some regulators and independent insurers complain the measure is a political fudge, and fought — but failed — to have it removed from the new rule book. “The impact on increasing systemic risk is massive,” says one insurer.
这种压力很大程度上是由于“厄运循环”造成的，这种循环源于银行持有如此多处于困境的母国的主权债务。这些债务的贬值导致银行亏损，进而导致贷款削减，进一步打击了经济。具有讽刺意味的是，丹麦妥协方案及其鼓励购买更多债券的做法放大了这种风险。一些监管机构和独立保险公司抱怨这一措施是一种政治伎俩，并试图将其从新的规则手册中删除，但未能成功。一家保险公司表示：“对增加系统性风险的影响是巨大的。”
One particular area for concern is exactly the issue that tripped up US regional banks: in the higher-interest-rate environment, large volumes of hidden losses accumulated on long-dated bonds. The value of eurozone banks’ domestic government bond exposure, currently €1.5tn, slumped nearly 20 per cent in the two years to early 2023.
一个特别令人担忧的领域正是让美国地区银行陷入困境的问题：在利率较高的环境下，长期债券累积了大量隐性损失。在截至2023年初的两年内，欧元区银行持有的国内政府债券价值下降了近20%，目前为1.5万亿欧元。
And while European bank rules mean losses for most banks are transparently accounted for, and insurers apply similar fair-value accounting, there is a mismatch when insurance subsidiaries are consolidated into bank parent companies. Losses in the insurance subsidiary are not reflected in the bank’s consolidated accounts. (Data on insurers’ sovereign exposure is less granular, but across the European Economic Area is about €1.6tn.)
虽然欧洲银行规则意味着大多数银行的损失都以透明的方式入账，保险公司也采用类似的公允价值会计方法，但当保险子公司并入银行母公司时，就会出现不匹配的情况。保险子公司的损失不会反映在银行的合并账目中。(关于保险公司主权风险敞口的数据不太详细，但整个欧洲经济区约为1.6万亿欧元）。
The issue is troubling on other grounds, too. The politically convenient fiction that all eurozone sovereign bonds are risk-free means that banks need set no capital against them. At the same time there is less effective regulatory supervision of a so-called bancassurer because the structure of banking and insurance supervision is split between the ECB and the less muscular European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority.
这个问题在其他方面也令人不安。所有欧元区主权债券都是无风险的这种政治上方便的虚构，意味着银行不需要为这些债券拨备资本金。与此同时，对所谓的银行保险公司的监管效率较低，因为银行和保险监管的结构是由欧洲央行和实力较弱的欧洲保险和职业养老金管理局分开的。
The final phase of post-2008 Basel III regulation will boost the solidity of much of the global banking system. But thanks to a Mexican stand-off in the US, and a Danish Compromise in the eurozone, there are still weak points. And a crisis does love a weak point.
2008年后《巴塞尔协议III》监管的最后阶段将增强全球大部分银行体系的稳定性。但由于美国国内的互不妥协，以及欧元区的丹麦妥协方案，仍然存在薄弱环节。危机就喜欢薄弱环节。