The story has always been the same, for a few months now: separating commercial activities from the financial and investment part. Easy to say, but very complicated to put into practice. The various institutes, in fact, despite the beating of the crisis, seem rather reluctant to divide sectors that until yesterday were in fact inextricable from an operational point of view. Thus, on Wednesday afternoon, in a hearing before the special parliamentary commission, the heads of the four most important banks in the United Kingdom expressed all their disagreement.
The protection of retail activities (deposits and credit to SMEs) with a resistant wall mortgage is the subject of a package of reforms by a specific independent commission. But what kind of separation to achieve? The conflict was quickly staged: Royal Bank of Scotland and Barklays aim for a narrow delimitation that includes mostly simple deposits, while HSBC and Lloyds Banking Group would like to include a greater mix of assets.
The theme will be developed in the coming weeks but a difficult mediation between the interests of the main banks is expected, a problem that does not only concern Great Britain. On the one hand, in fact, they want to appear reassuring towards public opinion and regulatory authorities; on the other, however, a new business model, centered on the aforementioned separation of assets, will require spin-offs and restructurings that are more traumatic than expected. And above all, the homogeneity and alignment of the new structures among all institutions must be guaranteed: at national level and beyond.
