By Peter Thal Larsen

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

It’s time for banks to knock ratings agencies off their pedestal. For all their well-documented flaws, credit ratings are still hard-wired into the financial system. An industry-wide downgrade by Moody’s may provide the catalyst to curb the agencies’ power.

By Peter Thal Larsen

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

“Don’t blame me, blame the banks.” That, in a nutshell, is Mervyn King’s assessment of Britain’s most severe recession for seventy years. The Bank of England governor admitted in his radio lecture to not shouting loudly enough about financial risks. Yet his retrospective largely ignored the many criticisms of central bank policy, after as well as before the crisis. That’s a missed opportunity.

By Peter Thal Larsen

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Is UBS finally becoming boring? Following its 2008 near-death experience and last year’s rogue trading scandal, the Swiss bank has promised shareholders – and clients – a more predictable, less exciting future. Respectable first-quarter results allowed new chief executive Sergio Ermotti to offer a glimpse of what might be in prospect.

By Peter Thal Larsen

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Credit Suisse is still shrinking. The Swiss bank returned to the black in the first quarter, even though revenue was well below the same period of 2011. Cost-cutting helped, and balance-sheet contraction boosted returns. But the bank has more to do to meet tough capital targets. Choppy markets won’t help.

By Peter Thal Larsen

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

“Wie boter op het hoofd heeft, moet uit de zon blijven.” The Dutch proverb is particularly appropriate for the country’s right-of-centre government, which has collapsed after failing to agree big budget cuts. In English, it reads: “He who has butter on his head must stay out of the sun”.

By Peter Thal Larsen

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Must the governor of the Bank of England be English? That’s the intriguing question raised by a report that Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of Canada, has been sounded out as a possible replacement for Mervyn King, who is due to retire next year.

By Peter Thal Larsen

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

No-one can accuse the Financial Services Authority of avoiding big targets. Indeed, the UK watchdog has trained its sights on one of the City of London’s most prominent dealmakers by fining Ian Hannam the best part of half a million pounds for passing on price-sensitive information about his client, Heritage Oil.

By Peter Thal Larsen
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Banking is fiction’s hidden profession. Despite decades of financial expansion, novelists and playwrights have struggled to imagine a contemporary Shylock or Augustus Melmotte, the shadowy star of Anthony Trollope’s “The Way We Live Now”. A quarter of a century has passed since Tom Wolfe dreamt up Sherman McCoy, the bond trader who personified the arrogance and greed of an earlier boom in “The Bonfire of the Vanities”. With the crisis wreckage still smouldering, the characters in most contemporary novels are more likely to be found robbing a bank than working for one.

By Peter Thal Larsen

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Britain’s bubble-prickers are aiming high. The Bank of England’s new Financial Policy Committee, which is charged with averting future crises, has asked the government for sweeping powers to rein in banks, insurers and fund managers. Even if it doesn’t get everything it wants, the FPC will clearly have muscle. The snag is that it has few ideas for solving the most pressing current problem: excessive risk aversion.

By Peter Thal Larsen

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Sergio Ermotti is taking a gamble. The UBS chief executive is preparing to install his former colleague Andrea Orcel as co-head of the Swiss group’s investment banking division. Luring the BofA Merrill Lynch dealmaker would be a sign that battle- and scandal-scarred UBS can still attract big names. But given Orcel’s patchy management track record, he has a lot to prove.