Shares in European banks rose, edging towards three year highs – after international banking regulators reached agreement on new steps to bolster the industry's financial strength.
Barclays was up nearly 3%, and bailed out banks Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group up 3% and 1% respectively after the announcement by a gathering of central banks in Basel, Switzerland. Deutsche Bank was up more than 4% and UBS, the Swiss bank, gained 3.2%.
The key announcement in the complex agreement was about the leverage ratio – which attempts to restrict the amount of borrowing by banks – and which has become a new focus since the 2008 banking crisis. As expected the ratio was set at 3% – which allows banks to lend 33 times the amount of their capital – but some changes were made to the way the banks can calculate their assets.
Complying with this rule was one of the reasons Barclays was forced to raise £6bn of new capital last year. Ian Gordon, banks analyst at Investec, said: "The devil is in the detail, but in particular it offers potential relief around counterparty netting and off-balance sheet items. While positive for certain European banks, the benefit for UK banks is less clear given UK 'super-equivalents' (stricter interpretation of the rules)."
The agreement clears the way for the Bank of England to consider the terms of a review of the leverage ratio demanded by Chancellor George Osborne last year.
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The global economy
Much attention will be paid to the fact that the deepest slump in postwar history has been followed by the weakest recovery. In the past, economies have tended to be booming five years after a recession, but growth has been weak despite low interest rates and money creation programmes. Attention this year will focus on four issues. Can the US "taper" away its QE stimulus without aborting its tepid recovery and triggering a fresh crisis in one of the "fragile five" emerging countries (India, Indonesia, South Africa, Turkey and Brazil)? Can China switch to a more liberalised model without a hard landing? Will the eurozone be able to avoid Japanese-style deflation? And will 2014 be the year when Japan emerges from two decades of slow growth and falling prices? Japan's prime minister, Shinzo Abe, will give a keynote speech on 22 January, and insiders are expecting an optimistic tone following signs that his stimulus package is working.
Geopolitics
Davos likes to see itself as a mini UN, using the presence of so many leaders to seek progress in some of the world's trouble spots. This year, attention will focus on the Middle East, particularly Syria, and relations between Iran and Israel. Hassan Rouhani, Iran's president will be speaking to the WEF on 23 January. Israel's prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and its president, Shimon Peres, will also be in Davos, but will not share a platform with Rouhani. More generally, the WEF believes there is a crisis of global governance, with countries reluctant to co-operate on issues such as climate change and an erosion of trust in politicians caused by the banking crisis
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