Читать книгу Risk Management and Financial Institutions - Hull John C. - Страница 27

Banks are complex global organizations engaged in many different types of activities. Today, the world's large banks are engaged in taking deposits, making loans, underwriting securities, trading, providing brokerage services, providing fiduciary services, advising on a range of corporate finance issues, offering mutual funds, providing services to hedge funds, and so on. There are potential conflicts of interest and banks develop internal rules to avoid them. It is important that senior managers are vigilant in ensuring that employees obey these rules. The cost in terms of reputation, lawsuits, and fines from inappropriate behavior where one client (or the bank) is advantaged at the expense of another client can be very large.

There are now international agreements on the regulation of banks. This means that the capital banks are required to keep for the risks they are bearing does not vary too much from one country to another. Many countries have guaranty programs that protect small depositors from losses arising from bank failures. This has the effect of maintaining confidence in the banking system and avoiding mass withdrawals of deposits when there is negative news (or perhaps just a rumor) about problems faced by a particular bank.