Banking Regulations Shifts Risk To The Buy Side

For all the deleveraging that banks are doing, new regulations aren’t reducing the amount of risk in the financial system so much as shifting it onto the buy side, says a new report from financial software firm Misys.

“Western banks initiated the process of de-leveraging their balance sheets in advance of implementation of many of these capital metrics [such as Basel III] and are far more focused on the compliance issues associated with such regulations,” write consultant Will Dombrowski and Misys senior risk advisor Bradley Ziff. “De-risking activities still continue today, as Eurozone banks are currently on track to unload as much as EUR 100 billion in unwanted loan portfolios during 2014 alone and remodel their businesses in the...