The Great Debate

The recession officially ended in July 2009, and yet the speed and scope of the subsequent recovery have been disappointing. Recent economic data have been encouraging, but there are three ominous trends in the consumer banking space that signal the waters ahead may be choppy.

1. No new banks were chartered in 2011

The Financial Times reported recently that not one new, or de novo, bank was created in 2011. (The FDIC actually lists three new bank charters for 2011 — the lowest number in more than 75 years — but they all involved bank takeovers of other failed banks.) What are some of the possible implications?

First, investors are clearly still gun-shy about banking. The dearth of new small banks is also a negative sign for small businesses generally, as they are particularly dependent on small banks for loans. Since most employment growth in the U.S. comes from small businesses that use external finance to grow into large businesses, a decline in these businesses’ access to loans could limit future employment growth as well.

The dominant narrative in 2011, like the 2010 version, was one of bank failures and distressed acquisitions. The FDIC reports that about a hundred banks failed and another hundred were absorbed this past year. But industry consolidation has been prevalent since the 1990s, as this excellent image-graphic from Mother Jones (where you can click on the image to enlarge it) reveals.

In addition, the FDIC reports that banks with assets over $1 billion witnessed an increase in business lending in 2011, while firms under that threshold actually saw lending decline. David Reilly’s speculation on what may be fueling this trend is noteworthy:

– Wei Gu is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are her own —

Chinese banks are like enthusiastic runners on an accelerating treadmill. The weakening economy means poor lending decisions are threatening to catch up with them, but the banks are sprinting ahead by expanding their loan books ever faster. They cannot keep this up for ever.

For now things still look fine. China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) this week claimed that Chinese banks were managing credit risk sagely, pointing to record low non-performing loan ratios. Given the massive increase in the number of loans outstanding — up 24 percent since the start of the year — it’s not surprising that the proportion of them that are non-performing at large commercial banks, which accounts for 60 percent of the lending, has declined from 2.4 percent to 1.8 percent in the past six months.

If it's not a risk to the financial system, let it fail.

That's the message from the government's reluctance to swoop in and bail out one of the nation's biggest commercial lenders, CIT Group Inc, as it struggles to stay afloat. But even though CIT doesn't have the firepower to take down the global financial system, its failure would certainly be felt by some of the struggling small businesses that rely on its financing.

CIT is negotiating with its regulators to find a solution to its near-term liquidity problems, but speculation that it will file for bankruptcy has intensified after the Wall Street Journal reported that it was preparing for a possible filing.

Not that you can blame the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp and the tough-minded Sheila Bair for thinking twice about supporting a junk-rated lender that has already sucked in more than $2 billion of government funds.

- Laurence Copeland is a professor of finance at Cardiff University Business School. The opinions expressed are his own. -

Is the crisis over yet?

In the last 3 months, the Dow and the FTSE have each risen by about 25 percent, the Standard & Poor's 500 by a third. House prices appear to be stabilising in the UK. Stress-tested and backed by seemingly unlimited government funding, the banks are lending again (if only to each other), so that 1-month libor is down to only 0.3 percent.

In the Far East, the Chinese economy may be growing again, and even Japan may have pulled out of its nosedive. The oil price has recovered from its lows.