When as children we played football in the parish fields or in some courtyards, the rule was valid according to which every three corner kicks he scored a penalty. In the field of justice it cannot be said that three clues make a test but certainly three clues give rise to an investigative doubt. In the field of the global economy and finance, it can certainly be said that three clues raise a doubt with regard to the real competence and authority of the regulators and of the economic and financial operators.
Application of international accounting standards IAS/IFRS – The presumed validity and objectivity of the IAS, with the cornerstone of the phantom fair value which for many years has been at the center of numerous popular science articles and which has now disappeared from the debate, have been one of the major contributory causes enabled the embellishment of corporate balance sheets, banks and other financial institutions and the explosion of derivative products that had no reference to solid underlyings or economic collateral.
Ratings agencies ratings – The criticisms of the behavior of the "three sisters of the rating” and above all of their surprising promptness and surgical ability to come out with assessments on the risks of down grading and with a negative outlook on banks and sovereign debt in open markets and on the occasion of the approaching important decisions of various bodies, in recent months especially European or concerning the stability of the euro. This concerned timeliness was once again confirmed by the decision taken on Friday 13th, strange combination of day and number conjuring bad luck, concerning the downgrade of the sovereign debt of France and other Southern European countries which led to the turnaround of the financial markets and further fibrillation in the euro system.
Guidelines recently adopted by the EBA, the European agency which assesses the solidity of the old continent's banks – The reasons with which this "authority" believes in defending the solidity of the banking system and savers are perplexing, if not astonished. In recent months, this authority has subjected the European banks to stress tests, the methodology of which is not transparent and which in any case have raised more than one doubt about the quality of the results and the disparity in dealing with the banks of different countries, and has defined guidelines based on the principle of strengthening the capital solidity of the various institutions. Decisions they have induced/forced some banks to decide on capital increases which, in a situation of scarce liquidity or a scarce propensity to invest in equity, led to a collapse in the stock market value, the most sensational that of Unicredit, followed by sudden ascents and dynamics that look more like the Dolomites than a roller coaster.
Even a mediocre bank student of economics knows, or should know because it is taught in the first few lessons of university courses, that the best guarantee for a bank is constituted not by the assets, which can be burned in a few weeks or even days, but from three elements: solid and solvent customers, including businesses and households applying for mortgages or other loans, growing economy or in any case structurally strong even in the negative cycle phase, e trust of depositors.
