Financial Regulatory Forum

By Ted Knutson

WASHINGTON, Sept. 5 (Thomson Reuters Accelus) - Post-Hurricane Katrina disaster preparations helped banks weather the storm after last week’s Hurricane Isaac, Louisiana Office of Financial Institutions (Bank) Division Chief Examiner Sid Seymour told Thomson Reuters Monday.

“After Katrina in 2005, some bank locations were closed for weeks. But Isaac came in on the 29th, we had banks in the coastal parishes that were closed that day, on the next, bank staffers were doing damage (recovery) the next day and the day after, most locations were reopen,” the head state bank examiner said. (more…)

The International Monetary Fund has done what it was bid by the G20  and come up with proposals for getting banks to pay for the government help they receive when they get in trouble.  You can read the actual wording here, but it comes down to this:

1) A "Financial Stability Contribution" which would be pooled into a fund that would use it to help weak banks, or just go into general government revenues.

2)  A "Financial Activities Tax" -- perhaps intentionally known as FAT -- to be levied on combined bank profits and remuneration (for which read "bonuses") and paid to governments.