2 Swiss banks to end 200-yr secrecy and publish financials

Two Geneva-based banks that have kept their finance sheets shrouded in secrecy since 1796 will publish their earnings amid pressure from abroad.

Lomard Odier and Pictet, two of Switzerland’s largest independent private banks, will report financials in August, Bloomberg News reports, citing a source from Odier.

Lombard Odier, Geneva’s oldest wealth management firm, will report August 28, with Pictet also due to report by the end of the month.

Together the banks oversee about $630 billion in asset management, both private and institutional, according to Bloomberg.

Pichet is under investigation by the US Justice Department, along with a dozen other Swiss banks for helping Americans dodge taxes. Lombard Odier has voluntarily agreed to swap information with US authorities.

After much delay, last year Switzerland, the world’s largest offshore wealth center, signed an agreement to share financial data with tax authorities in the US and Europe.

In October 2013 a convention with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and agreed to exchange data with 60 member countries, including neighbors Germany andFrance looking to track down tax evaders.

The US has an especially tumultuous relationship with Switzerland over tax evasion, and has threatened billions in claims if the country didn’t make banking more transparent.

Switzerland’s oldest private bank, Wegelin & Co., shut its doors after it pled guilty to helping Americans hide more than $1.2 billion from the International Revenue Service (IRS).

In February 2014, Credit Suisse was accused by the US Senate of storing more than 12 billion Swiss francs for more than 22,000 American clients.

Pressure reached a peak in 2009 when Switzerland’s biggest lender UBS admitted to helping 52,000 American clients evade taxes.

Switzerland is home to more than $2 trillion in assets that are held in more than 300 private banks.

http://rt.com/business/182204-swiss-banks-secrecy-finance/

Council On Foreign Relations: The Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s – Not Putin’s – Fault

We’ve previously reported that it’s the West’s encirclement of Russia [8] – breaking a key promise [9] which led to the break-up of the Soviet Union – which is behind the Ukraine crisis.

We’ve also noted [10]:

The U.S. State Department spent more than $5 billion [11] dollars in pushing Ukraine towards the West.  The U.S. ambassador to Ukraine (Geoffrey Pyatt) and assistant Secretary of State (Victoria Nuland) were also recorded plotting the downfall of the former Ukraine government in a leaked recorder conversation [12].  Top-level U.S. officials [13] literally handed out cookies [14] to the protesters [15] who overthrew the Ukrainian government.

And the U.S. has been doing everything it can to trumpet pro-Ukrainian and anti-Russian propaganda. So – without doubt – the U.S. government is heavily involved with fighting a propaganda war regarding Ukraine.

The news is starting to go mainstream …

Specifically, the Council On Foreign Relations (CFR) is a very mainstream, hawkish [16] group.

CFR’s flagship publication – Foreign Affairs [17] – has just published a piece blaming the Ukraine crisis on the West.

The piece by John Mearsheimer – in it’s September/October 2014 issue – accurately notes [18]:

The United States and its European allies share most of the responsibility for the crisis. The taproot of the trouble is NATO enlargement, the central element of a larger strategy to move Ukraine out of Russia’s orbit and integrate it into the West. At the same time, the EU’s expansion eastward and the West’s backing of the pro-democracy movement in Ukraine — beginning with the Orange Revolution in 2004 — were critical elements, too. Since the mid-1990s, Russian leaders have adamantly opposed NATO enlargement, and in recent years, they have made it clear that they would not stand by while their strategically important neighbor turned into a Western bastion. For Putin, the illegal overthrow of Ukraine’s democratically elected and pro-Russian president — which he rightly labeled a “coup” — was the final straw. He responded by taking Crimea, a peninsula he feared would host a NATO naval base, and working to destabilize Ukraine until it abandoned its efforts to join the West.  Putin’s pushback should have come as no surprise. After all, the West had been moving into Russia’s backyard and threatening its core strategic interests, a point Putin made emphatically and repeatedly. Elites in the United States and Europe have been blindsided by events only because they subscribe to a flawed view of international politics.

***

U.S. and European leaders blundered in attempting to turn Ukraine into a Western stronghold on Russia’s border. Now that the consequences have been laid bare, it would be an even greater mistake to continue this misbegotten policy.

***

The West’s final tool for peeling Kiev away from Moscow has been its efforts to spread Western values and promote democracy in Ukraine and other post-Soviet states, a plan that often entails funding pro-Western individuals and organizations. Victoria Nuland, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, estimated in December 2013 that the United States had invested more than $5 billion since 1991 to help Ukraine achieve “the future it deserves.” As part of that effort, the U.S. government has bankrolled the National Endowment for Democracy. The nonprofit foundation has funded more than 60 projects aimed at promoting civil society in Ukraine, and the NED’s president, Carl Gershman, has called that country “the biggest prize.” After Yanukovych won Ukraine’s presidential election in February 2010, the NED decided he was undermining its goals, and so it stepped up its efforts to support the opposition and strengthen the country’s democratic institutions.

When Russian leaders look at Western social engineering in Ukraine, they worry that their country might be next. And such fears are hardly groundless. In September 2013, Gershman wrote in The Washington Post, “Ukraine’s choice to join Europe will accelerate the demise of the ideology of Russian imperialism that Putin represents.” He added: “Russians, too, face a choice, and Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself.”

The West’s triple package of policies — NATO enlargement, EU expansion, and democracy promotion — added fuel to a fire waiting to ignite. The spark came in November 2013, when Yanukovych rejected a major economic deal he had been negotiating with the EU and decided to accept a $15 billion Russian counteroffer instead. That decision gave rise to antigovernment demonstrations that escalated over the following three months and that by mid-February had led to the deaths of some one hundred protesters. Western emissaries hurriedly flew to Kiev to resolve the crisis. On February 21, the government and the opposition struck a deal that allowed Yanukovych to stay in power until new elections were held. But it immediately fell apart, and Yanukovych fled to Russia the next day. The new government in Kiev was pro-Western and anti-Russian to the core, and it contained four high-ranking members who could legitimately be labeled neofascists.

Although the full extent of U.S. involvement has not yet come to light, it is clear that Washington backed the coup. Nuland and Republican Senator John McCain participated in antigovernment demonstrations, and Geoffrey Pyatt, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, proclaimed after Yanukovych’s toppling that it was “a day for the history books.” As a leaked telephone recording revealed, Nuland had advocated regime change and wanted the Ukrainian politician Arseniy Yatsenyuk to become prime minister in the new government, which he did. No wonder Russians of all persuasions think the West played a role in Yanukovych’s ouster.

***

Putin’s actions should be easy to comprehend. A huge expanse of flat land that Napoleonic France, imperial Germany, and Nazi Germany all crossed to strike at Russia itself, Ukraine serves as a buffer state of enormous strategic importance to Russia. No Russian leader would tolerate a military alliance that was Moscow’s mortal enemy until recently moving into Ukraine. Nor would any Russian leader stand idly by while the West helped install a government there that was determined to integrate Ukraine into the West.

Washington may not like Moscow’s position, but it should understand the logic behind it. This is Geopolitics 101: great powers are always sensitive to potential threats near their home territory. After all, the United States does not tolerate distant great powers deploying military forces anywhere in the Western Hemisphere, much less on its borders. Imagine the outrage in Washington if China built an impressive military alliance and tried to include Canada and Mexico in it. Logic aside, Russian leaders have told their Western counterparts on many occasions that they consider NATO expansion into Georgia and Ukraine unacceptable, along with any effort to turn those countries against Russia — a message that the 2008 Russian-Georgian war also made crystal clear.

***

In [a] 1998 interview, [the top American expert on Russia, George] Kennan predicted that NATO expansion would provoke a crisis, after which the proponents of expansion would “say that we always told you that is how the Russians are.” As if on cue, most Western officials have portrayed Putin as the real culprit in the Ukraine predicament.

Mearsheimer gives a way out of this mess:

There is a solution to the crisis in Ukraine, however — although it would require the West to think about the country in a fundamentally new way. The United States and its allies should abandon their plan to westernize Ukraine and instead aim to make it a neutral buffer between NATO and Russia, akin to Austria’s position during the Cold War. Western leaders should acknowledge that Ukraine matters so much to Putin that they cannot support an anti-Russian regime there. This would not mean that a future Ukrainian government would have to be pro-Russian or anti-NATO. On the contrary, the goal should be a sovereign Ukraine that falls in neither the Russian nor the Western camp.

***

The United States and its European allies now face a choice on Ukraine. They can continue their current policy, which will exacerbate hostilities with Russia and devastate Ukraine in the process — a scenario in which everyone would come out a loser. Or they can switch gears and work to create a prosperous but neutral Ukraine, one that does not threaten Russia and allows the West to repair its relations with Moscow. With that approach, all sides would win.

Will saner heads prevail, and back away from the abyss [19] before it’s too late?

And see this [20].

http://www.zerohedge.com/print/493304

"The Financial System Is Vulnerable," NYFed Asks "Could The Dollar Lose Its Reserve Status?"

When a tin-foil-hat-wearing blog full of digital dickweeds suggest the dollar's reserve currency status is at best diminishing, it is fobbed off as yet another conspiracy theory (yet to be proved conspiracy fact) too horrible to imagine for the status quo huggers. But when the VP of Research at the New York Fed asks "Could the dollar lose its status as the key international currency for international trade and international financial transactions," and further is unable to say why not, it is perhaps worth considering the principal contributing factors she warns of.

Via The World Economic Forum blog,

Could the dollar lose its status as the key international currency for international trade and international financial transactions, and if so, what would be the principal contributing factors?

Speculation about this issue has long been abundant, and views diverse. After the introduction of the euro, there was much public debate about the euro displacing the dollar (Frankel 2008). The monitoring and analysis included in the ECB’s reports on “The International Role of the Euro” (e.g. ECB 2013) show that the international use of the euro mainly progressed in the years prior to 2004, and that it has largely stalled since then. More recently, the euro has been displaced by the renminbi as the debate’s main contender for reducing the international role of the dollar (Frankel 2011).

This debate has mainly argued in terms of ‘traditional’ determinants of international currency status, such as country size, economic stability, openness to trade and capital flows and the depth and liquidity of financial markets (Portes and Rey 1998). Considerations regarding the strength of country institutions have more recently been added to the list. All of these factors influence the ability of currencies to function as stores of value, to support liquidity, and to be accepted for international payments. Inertia also plays a role (e.g. Krugman 1984, Goldberg 2010), raising the bar for currencies that might uproot the status quo.

We argue here – building on discussions we began during the World Economic Forum Summit on the Global Agenda 2013 – that the rise in global financial-market integration implies an even broader set of drivers of the future roles of international currencies. In particular, we maintain that the set of drivers should include the institutional and regulatory frameworks for financial stability.

The emphasis on financial stability is linked with the expanded awareness of governments and international investors of the importance of safety and liquidity of related reserve assets. For a currency to have international reserve status, the related assets must be useable with minimal transaction-price impact, and have relatively stable values in times of stress. If the risk of banking stress or failures is substantial, and the potential fiscal consequences are sizeable, the safety of sovereign assets is compromised exactly at times of financial stress, through the contingent fiscal liabilities related to systemic banking crises. Monies with reserve-currency status therefore need to be ones with low probabilities of twin sovereign and financial crises. Financial stability reforms can – alongside fiscal prudence – help protect the safety and liquidity of sovereign assets, and can hence play a crucial role for reserve-currency status.

The broader emphasis on financial stability also derives indirectly from the expanded awareness in the international community of the occasionally disruptive international spillovers of centre-country funding shocks (Rey 2013). We argue that regulatory reforms can play a role in influencing these spillovers. Resilience-enhancing financial regulation of global banks can help reduce the volatility of capital flows that are intermediated through such banks.

On financial stability and reserve-currency status

International reserve assets tend to be provided by sovereigns, notably due to the fiscal capacity of the state and the credibility of the lender of last resort function of the central bank during liquidity crises (see also De Grauwe 2011 and Gourinchas and Jeanne 2012). Systemic financial events can be accompanied by pressures on the government budget, however. While provision of a fiscal backstop to the banking sector is not the best ex ante approach to policy, fiscal support will tend to be forthcoming if the risk and estimated welfare costs of a systemic fallout are otherwise deemed too high.

Yet banking sector risks – and inadequate capacity within the banking sector to absorb these risks – can end up exceeding a government’s ability to provide a credible fiscal backstop without adversely affecting the safety of its sovereign assets. The fiscal consequences of bailouts may result in increased sovereign risk and the loss of safe-asset status, with implications for the status of the currency in question in the international monetary system.

To increase the likelihood that sovereign assets remain safe during systemic events, the sovereign can undertake financial and fiscal reforms that decouple the fiscal state of the sovereign from banking crises. Such reforms should achieve, in part, a reduction in the likelihood of and need for bailouts through increased resilience and loss absorption capacity of the financial system, and by ensuring sufficient fiscal space for credible financial-sector support (see also Obstfeld 2013).

Reform initiatives

A number of current reform initiatives already take steps in this direction. These include:

• Reforms to bank capital and liquidity regulation, which reduce the likelihood that financial institutions, and notably systemically important ones (SIFIs), become distressed;
• Initiatives that seek to counteract the procyclicality of leverage, and to strengthen oversight; and
• Recovery and resolution regimes for distressed systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs) are being improved.

Importantly, initiatives are underway to improve recovery and resolution in the international context. While a global agreement on cross-border bank resolution is currently not in place, bilateral agreements among some pairs of countries are being forged ex ante to facilitate lower-cost resolution ex post. Further, the resilience of the system as a whole is being strengthened, to better contain the systemic externalities of funding shocks. Examples include:

• The strengthening of the resilience of central counterparties and other financial market infrastructures; and
• The foreign currency swap arrangements among central banks to provide access to foreign currency funding liquidity at times when market prices of such liquidity are punishingly high.

Nevertheless, the financial system contains vulnerabilities – globally, as well as in individual currency areas. The negative sovereign banking feedback loop may be weakened in many countries, but has not been fully severed. Moreover, reforms are not necessarily evenly implemented across countries. Fiscal capacities to provide credible backstops of the financial sector during stress vary widely. The consequences of recent reforms for the future of key international currencies are therefore open. Scope remains for countries vying for reserve-currency status to use the tool of financial stability reform to protect the safety and liquidity of their sovereign assets from the contingent liabilities of financial systemic risk.

Financial stability reforms matter for spillovers and capital flows

International capital flows yield many advantages to home and host countries alike. Yet the international monetary system still faces potential challenges stemming from unanticipated volatility in flows, as well as occasionally disruptive spillovers of shocks in centre-country funding conditions to the periphery. With the events around the collapse of Lehman Brothers, disruption in dollar-denominated wholesale funding markets led to retrenchment of international lending activities. Capital flows to some emerging-market economies then recovered with a vengeance as investors searched for yield outside the countries central to the international monetary system, where interest rates were maintained at the zero lower bound. After emerging markets were buoyed by the influx of funds, outflows and repositioning occurred when markets viewed some of the expansionary policies in the US as more likely to be unwound.

While macroprudential measures – and in extreme cases, capital controls – are some of the policy options available for addressing the currently intrinsic vulnerabilities of some capital-flow recipient periphery countries (IMF 2012), we point out that these vulnerabilities can also be addressed in part by financial stability reforms in centre countries.

Consider, for example, the consequences of the regulatory reforms pertaining to international banks that are currently being proposed or implemented. Improvements in the underlying financial strength and loss-absorbing capacity of global banks could have the beneficial side-effect of reducing some of the negative spillovers associated with unanticipated volatility in international banking flows – especially those to emerging and developing economies. Empirical research suggests that better-capitalized financial institutions, and institutions with more stable funding sources and stronger liquidity management, adjust their balance sheets to a lesser degree when funding conditions tighten (Gambacorta and Mistrulli 2004, Kaplan and Minoiu 2013). The result extends to cross-border bank lending (Cetorelli and Goldberg 2011, Bruno and Shin 2013).

While financial stability reforms may reduce the externalities of centre-country funding conditions, they retain the features of international banking that promote efficient allocation of capital, risk sharing and effective financial intermediation. By enhancing the stability of global institutions and reducing some of the amplitude of the volatility of international capital flows, they may address some of the objections to the destabilising features of the current system.

Cross-border capital flows that take place outside of the global banking system have recently increased relative to banking flows (Shin 2013). Regulation of global banks does very little to address such flows, and may even push more flows toward the unregulated sector. At the same time, however, regulators are considering non-bank and non-insurer financial institutions as potential global systemically-important financial institutions (Financial Stability Board 2014).

Conclusions

We have argued that the policy and institutional frameworks for financial stability are important new determinants of the relative roles of currencies in the international monetary system. Financial stability reform enhances the safety of reserve assets, and may contribute indirectly to the stability of international capital flows. Of course, the ‘old’ drivers of reserve currencies continue to be influential. China’s progress in liberalising its capital account, and structural reforms to generate medium-term growth in the Eurozone – as examples of determinants of the future international roles of the renminbi and the euro relative to the US dollar – will continue to influence their international currency status. Our point is that such reforms will not be enough. The progress achieved on financial stability reforms in major currency areas will also greatly influence the future roles of their currencies.

Authors: Linda Goldberg, Vice President of International Research at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Signe Krogstrup, Assistant Director and Deputy Head of Monetary Policy Analysis, Swiss National Bank; Member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on the International Monetary System

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-08-20/financial-system-vulnerable-nyfed-asks-could-dollar-lose-its-reserve-status

Putin Says The Petrodollar Must Die, "The Dollar Monopoly In Energy Trade Is Damaging Russia's Economy"

On one hand, despite initial weakness following Europe's triple-dip red alert, futures declined only to surge higher after some headline or another out of Russia was again spun to suggest imminent Ukraine de-escalation (something which Russia whose only interest is to keep crude prices high, hasabsolutely zero interest in), perpetuating a rumor which was set off by a Russian media outlet tweet last week that has sent S&P futures over 50 higher in less than a week on... nothing.

On the other, Putin just said the following, which no matter how one spins it, shows precisely how Russia is inclined vis-a-vis future (un-de-counter) escalations.

PUTIN SAYS RUSSIA SHOULD AIM TO SELL OIL AND GAS FOR ROUBLES GLOBALLY, AS DOLLAR MONOPOLY IN ENERGY TRADE IS DAMAGING ECONOMY

Reuters adds:

President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday Russia should aim to sell its oil and gas for roubles globally because the dollar monopoly in energy trade was damaging Russia's economy.

"We should act carefully. At the moment we are trying to agree with some countries to trade in national currencies," Putin said during a visit to the Crimea region, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine earlier this year.

Countries such as China, India, Iran, Brazil, and virtually every other non-insolvent, that is to say "developed, Western" country.

And now, bring on the Russian "isolation" (which is about to push Europe, not Russia, into a triple-dip recession) and further de-escalation.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-08-14/putin-says-petrodollar-must-die-dollar-monopoly-energy-trade-damaging-russias-econom

Fed Vice Chair Fischer On U.S. Bailin "Proposals"

Fed Vice Chair Fischer On U.S. Bailin "Proposals"

Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer delivered his first speech on the U.S. and global economy in Stockholm, Sweden yesterday.

Fischer headed Israel’s central bank from 2005 through 2013 and is now number two at the Federal Reserve in the U.S. after Janet Yellen.

 [14]

Janet Yellen and Stanley Fischer

In a speech entitled, The Great Recession: Moving Ahead [15], given at an event sponsored by the Swedish Ministry of Finance, Fischer said that the economic recovery has been and remains “disappointing.”

“The recession that began in the United States in December 2007 ended in June 2009. But the Great Recession is a near-worldwide phenomenon, with the consequences of which many advanced economies--among them Sweden--continue to struggle. Its depth and breadth appear to have changed the economic environment in many ways and to have left the road ahead unclear.”

Speaking about the steps that have been taken internationally in order to “strengthen the financial system” and to reduce the “probability of future financial crisis,” Fischer said that the U.S. was preparing proposals for bank bail-ins for “systemically important banks.”

“Additional steps have been taken in some countries. For example, in the United States, capital ratios and liquidity buffers at the largest banks are up considerably, and their reliance on short-term wholesale funding has declined considerably. Work on the use of the resolution mechanisms set out in the Dodd-Frank Act, based on the principle of a single point of entry--though less advanced than the work on capital and liquidity ratios--holds the promise of making it possible to resolve banks in difficulty at no direct cost to the taxpayer.

As part of this approach, the United States is preparing a proposal to require systemically important banks to issue bail-inable long-term debt that will enable insolvent banks to recapitalize themselves in resolution without calling on government funding--this cushion is known as a "gone concern" buffer.”


See guide to coming bail-ins here [14]Protecting Your Savings in the Coming Bail-In Era [14]

Fischer’s comments that the U.S. is “preparing a proposal” for bail-ins is at odds with Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and Bank of England officials who have said that bail-in legislation could be used today.

The U.S. already has in place plans for bail-ins in the event of banks failing. Indeed, the U.S. has conducted simulation exercises with the U.K. in 2013 and again this year.

On October 12 2013, Art Murton, the FDIC official in charge of planning for resolutions, and the Bank of England’s Deputy Governor Paul Tucker, both confirmed that the U.S. system is ready to handle a big-bank collapse.

The Bank of England’s Tucker, who has worked with U.S. regulators on the cross-border hurdles to taking down an international bank said that “U.S. authorities could do it today -- and I mean today.” 

There is speculation that were Yellen to retire early Fischer would be anointed as the new Federal Reserve Chairman. 

Fischer who previously was chief economist at the World Bank, also makes it clear that he expects ultra loose monetary policies to continue in the U.S. which will be bullish for gold and silver.

MARKET UPDATE
Today’s AM fix was USD 1,311.00, EUR 982.76 and GBP 781.75 per ounce.Yesterday’s AM fix was USD 1,308.25, EUR 977.33  and GBP 779.37 per ounce.

Gold fell $2.30 yesterday to $1,309.10/oz and silver rose $0.07 or 0.35% to $20.04/oz.

Gold popped higher today as equities fell on news that a Russian aid convoy is heading to Ukraine and on signs that the new deepening tensions and risk of conflict with Russia is hurting confidence in the euro zone economy.

 The Zew think tank in Germany reported a drop in investor confidence to its lowest level since 2012 due to the risk that economic sanctions pose to fragile economies. This helped push European shares and the euro lower, while boosting German bunds and gold.

Gold is marginally higher in London this morning after gold in Singapore [16] fell to test $1,305/oz overnight again. Futures trading volume was 36% below the average for the past 100 days this morning as Wall Street remains on vacation.

Gold in U.S. Dollars - 1 Year (Thomson Reuters)

Spot gold was up 0.3% at $1,312.70/oz at 1230 GMT, while U.S. gold futures for December delivery were up $1.80/oz at $1,312.30.

Silver for immediate delivery rose 0.1% to $20.18 an ounce. Spot platinum was flat at $1,473.63 an ounce, while palladium edged closer to multi year nominal highs and was 0.5% higher at $882 an ounce.

Russia said a convoy of 280 trucks had left for Ukraine today carrying humanitarian aid. U.S., EU and NATO officials warned that the help may be a pretext for a Russian invasion.

Gold has climbed about 9% this year, mostly on geopolitical tensions between the West and Russia over Ukraine, and violence in the Middle East. Gold is seen as a safe haven investment to hedge riskier assets such as equities.

Many market participants are surprised that gold has not seen greater gains and is flat since February. Given the degree of geopolitical uncertainty and the fact that this uncertainty is likely to disappear anytime soon, gold should have seen greater gains.

http://www.zerohedge.com/print/492807

"US Sanctions On Russia May Sink The Dollar," Ron Paul Fears "Grave Mistake"

Submitted by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute [11],

The US government's decision to apply more sanctions on Russia is a grave mistake and will only escalate an already tense situation, ultimately harming the US economy itself. While the effect of sanctions on the dollar may not be appreciated in the short term, in the long run these sanctions are just another step toward the dollar's eventual demise as the world's reserve currency.

Not only is the US sanctioning Russian banks and companies, but it also is trying to strong-arm European banks into enacting harsh sanctions against Russia as well. Given the amount of business that European banks do with Russia, European sanctions could hurt Europe at least as much as Russia. At the same time the US expects cooperation from European banks, it is also prosecuting those same banks and fining them billions of dollars for violating existing US sanctions. It is not difficult to imagine that European banks will increasingly become fed up with having to act as the US government's unpaid policemen, while having to pay billions of dollars in fines every time they engage in business that Washington doesn't like.

European banks are already cutting ties with American citizens and businesses due to the stringent compliance required by recently-passed laws such as FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act). In the IRS's quest to suck in as much tax dollars as possible from around the world, the agency has made Americans into the pariahs of the international financial system. As the burdens the US government places on European banks grow heavier, it should be expected that more and more European banks will reduce their exposure to the United States and to the dollar, eventually leaving the US isolated. Attempting to isolate Russia, the US actually isolates itself.

Another effect of sanctions is that Russia will grow closer to its BRICS (Brazil/Russia/India/China/South Africa) allies. These countries count over 40 percent of the world's population, have a combined economic output almost equal to the US and EU, and have significant natural resources at their disposal. Russia is one of the world's largest oil producers and supplies Europe with a large percent of its natural gas. Brazil has the second-largest industrial sector in the Americas and is the world's largest exporter of ethanol. China is rich in mineral resources and is the world's largest food producer. Already Russia and China are signing agreements to conduct their bilateral trade with their own national currencies rather than with the dollar, a trend which, if it spreads, will continue to erode the dollar's position in international trade. Perhaps more importantly, China, Russia, and South Africa together produce nearly 40 percent of the world's gold, which could play a role if the BRICS countries decide to establish a gold-backed currency to challenge the dollar.

US policymakers fail to realize that the United States is not the global hegemon it was after World War II. They fail to understand that their overbearing actions toward other countries, even those considered friends, have severely eroded any good will that might previously have existed. And they fail to appreciate that more than 70 years of devaluing the dollar has put the rest of the world on edge. There is a reason the euro was created, a reason that China is moving to internationalize its currency, and a reason that other countries around the world seek to negotiate monetary and trade compacts. The rest of the world is tired of subsidizing the United States government's enormous debts, and tired of producing and exporting trillions of dollars of goods to the US, only to receive increasingly worthless dollars in return.

The US government has always relied on the cooperation of other countries to maintain the dollar's preeminent position. But international patience is wearing thin, especially as the carrot-and-stick approach of recent decades has become all stick and no carrot. If President Obama and his successors continue with their heavy-handed approach of levying sanctions against every country that does something US policymakers don’t like, it will only lead to more countries shunning the dollar and accelerating the dollar's slide into irrelevance.

http://www.zerohedge.com/print/492807

Technology is finally disrupting financial services

Perhaps it is the stoic nature of the financial services industry that enabled it to resist disruption for so long, but there can be no doubt that technology has now burrowed into the heartland of the banking sector, leading to a wave of innovation in traditional markets like foreign exchange, stocks and shares, borrowing and saving.

Markets, such as betting, music and aviation, were disrupted by Betfair, Napster and budget airlines well over a decade ago, but financial services' own disruption has been fairly recent. This is surprising, when you consider that services like PayPal have been in existence for as long as Amazon and eBay, without sparking widespread disruption.

You may recognise the names of many of these new young players, but it's unlikely you will have seen them on the high street, as this revolution is taking place almost exclusively online, enabled by the low barriers to entry that modern technology affords.

Who is leading the revolution?

Young, social and not always from a financial services background, these 'disrupters' have lived through a lifetime where access to technology (and creating it) is second nature, and where consumers have choices, are transient and looking for value. By applying this ethos to their own products and services, they are winning new customers from a range of demographic groups.

The way companies like Transferwise, which is disrupting the foreign exchange transfer service, and Nutmeg, which offers low-cost investment portfolio management, are able to pass this value to their customers is by saving a fortune on technology. Unlike their larger competitors, they have been able to start from scratch in the age of cloud, big data and mobile, thereby avoiding expensive overheads like legacy IT systems, branch networks and people. They also have talent and an entrepreneurial spirit that appeals to people who are tired of the same old services.

A perfect storm?

Disruption would not be truly possible without the right environment. The recession, coupled with disillusionment towards traditional finance providers, has coincided with a surge in internet adoption and trust in online providers. According to the latest Ofcom Adults' Media Use and Attitudes Report 2014, over 83% of adults now go online, nearly all 16-35 year olds are online (98%) and use in the over 65s has increased by almost 10% over the last two years, with 42% now online. Additionally, six in 10 adults now own a smartphone and 55% send and receive emails using their devices.

The largest growth demographic is the over 65s, with 20% now owning a smartphone, and 17% owning a tablet – a figure which has trebled in just a year.

One third of all mobile users claim to buy things via their phone or use their phone to check their bank balance.

All of which points towards emerging financial service providers accessing an audience that is no longer constrained by the traditional barriers of entry and trust, which would have prevented disruption on this scale several years ago.

Sustainable disruption?

The darling of the alternative finance revolution in the UK is undoubtedly peer-to-peer lending. True disruption ensued when a new market was created by Zopa in the UK. It recognised the opportunity to undercut loan and savings providers in the consumer market, by acting as a low margin middleman from a purely online platform and taking a small fee for the service.

Since Zopa, the business loan market has been further disrupted by the likes of Funding Circle and rebuildingsociety, invoice discounter Market Invoice, and supply chain financier Crossflow Payments. All of these platforms operate a high volume, low margin service, which creates value for businesses and the individuals and institutions lending money through them. Assuming they can retain the trust of their users and avoid scandal, there is no limit on how much these businesses can grow.

What has been significant is the political backing that 'alternative finance' has received. By allowing innovation and not legislating against it, the government has permitted disruption. This comes back to the 'perfect storm', where politicians have been put under pressure to increase funding to SMEs and have been given the license to back disrupters. This might not have happened in a boom cycle.

Competition breeds sustainability in markets. Businesses and consumers now have an ever-increasing pool of resources to tap, and crucially, these funds are not all reliant on the capital markets, meaning that if alternative finance continues to grow, we should have a more sustainable system, which is less sensitive to market movements.

The low margin aspect means that providers should be able to flex with any interest rate rise and still offer value for all parties. As a result, a future recession shouldn't mean a complete withdrawal of business loan products because there are many more providers operating now that would thrive in that environment. Alternative providers have evolved from the last resort, to the first option for many SMEs in just a few years.

What's next?

To date, pensions and insurance are two markets that haven't seen disruption on the same scale as personal and business loans.

Pensions in particular might need political assistance to make self-invested personal pensions (SIPPs) more accessible to people, but the high administration charges, which are causing many people to lose value, are exactly the sort of motivating factor that disrupters favour. If people were able to invest their pension themselves in a wider range of investments and pay minimal fees, you could certainly have an appealing product. Looking at the rest of the financial services market, you can clearly see the hallmarks of evolution. Existing providers are bending to trends as we all become more social, faster and less loyal. They're also looking to collaborate with disrupters to boost relations with their own customers.

But where customer inertia and superior technology might have protected financial services from significant disruption in the past, this is no longer the case. Technology is cheaper and easier to access than ever before, and people have acquired a taste for new online-only services.

Beyond any doubt, the disruption of financial services is only just beginning.

Nick Moules is marketing and communications manager for rebuildingsociety

The views reflected in this article are the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the global EY organisation or its member firms.

http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/technology-finally-disrupting-financial-services

De-Dollarization Accelerates - China/Russia Complete Currency Swap Agreement

The last 3 months have seen Russia's "de-dollarization" plans accelerate. First Gazprom clients shift to Euros and Renminbi, then the UK signs currency swap agreements with China, then NATO ally Turkey cuts ties and mulls de-dollarization, Switzerland jumps in the currency swap agreements, and BRICS create their own non-US-based funding vehicle, and then finally this week, Russia's oligarchs have shifted cash holdings to Hong Kong. But this week, as RT reports, Russian and Chinese central banks have agreed a draft currency swap agreement, which will allow them to increase trade in domestic currencies and cut the dependence on the US dollar in bilateral payments. “"The agreement will stimulate further development of direct trade in yuan and rubles on the domestic foreign exchange markets of Russia and China," the Russian regulator said.

As RT reports,

In early July, the Central Bank’s chairwoman Elvira Nabiullina said Moscow and Beijing were close to reaching an agreement on conducting swap operations in national currencies to boost trade. The deal was later discussed during her trip to China.

President Vladimir Putin, during his visit to Shanghai in May, said cooperation between Russian and Chinese banks was growing, and the two sides were set to continue developing the financial infrastructure.

“Work is underway to increase the amount of mutual payments in national currencies, and we intend to consider new financial instruments,” Putin said after talks with President Xi Jinping.

It appears the deal is done...

The Russian and Chinese central banks have agreed a draft currency swap agreement, which will allow them to increase trade in domestic currencies and cut the dependence on the US dollar in bilateral payments.

“The draft document between the Central Bank of Russia and the People’s Bank of China on national currency swaps has been agreed by the parties,” and is at the stage of formal approval procedures, ITAR-TASS quotes the Russian regulator’s office on Thursday.

The Russian Central Bank is not giving precise details on the size of the currency swaps, nor when it will be launched. It says this will depend on demand.

According to the bank, the agreement will serve as an additional instrument for ensuring international financial stability. Also, it will offer the possibility to obtain liquidity in critical situations.

“The agreement will stimulate further development of direct trade in yuan and rubles on the domestic foreign exchange markets of Russia and China,” the Russian regulator said.

Currently, over 75 percent of payments in Russia-China trade settlements are made in US dollars, according to Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper.

*  *  *

And as we have explained repeatedly in the past, the further the west antagonizes Russia, and the more economic sanctions it lobs at it, the more Russia will be forced away from a USD-denominated trading system and into one which faces China and India.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-08-09/de-dollarization-accelerates-chinarussia-complete-currency-swap-agreement