Talk:Global systemically important banks

Merger with Systemically Important Financial Institutions

I agree that the merger could be useful. In such a case Global Systemically Important Banks (GSIB) shall be a sub-chapter of Systemically Important Financial Institutions (SIFIs). SIFIs are a generict term for all systemically important financial institutional (could also include insurance companies). GSIB are only a list of banks defined by Fiancial Stablity Board, that the policy makers find systemically important - there could be other systemically important banks that FSB did not cover. You get the point. --Wikijasmin (talk) 16:28, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Radical layout change seems counterproductive

At one point this page was a quick reference directory of G-SIFIs showing global breakdown by three very important factors:

• Region
• Country
• Currency

It was a cross reference between those three factors.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Global_systemically_important_banks&oldid=528512471

G-SIFIs were arranged in roughly the time order the world's financial markets open up for trading. This is a significant factor. When major worldwide news breaks over the weekends EVERYONE looks to Asian markets first, because they open up first, the news is processed into trading prices in Asia, that impacts the open in UK/EU, and the subsequent open in North America. That's how global finance works. Temporal order is very important. If major world wide news hits during the day, traders go immediately to markets that are open for business. Cross border arbitrageurs work frantically ahead of the next major market to open.

Trading between countries with different currencies implies FOREIGN EXCHANGE. Every cross border trade typically implies a parallel FX transaction. The FX markets must absorb all the cross border equity and fixed income trading. Again cross border arbitrage requires a huge amount of FX trading capacity. Getting the equity and fixed income (long term assets) trading DONE requires CASH denominated in the home country currency.

Regions are important because the trading infrastructure itself is broken down that way. A G-SIFI typically has SEPARATE data centers and IT operations in EACH of the three worldwide global regions. To them there are only three time zones in the world, as each region typically supplies all the compute power for all the separate countries within. Staff doesn't go home until the last market closes in their region and markets in the next time zone region are up and running.

The prior format left all the "narrative" about G-SIFI's to that main Encyclopedia type article. This page was only a cross reference chart.

The "directory" page was just that. A quick cross reference to the actual entities, by region/country/currency.

Perhaps Global systemically important banks and the listings/cross references we had prior could be a disambiguation page? However I think that's potentially confusing. Frankly I thought it worked very well as structured before. This page was never envisioned as an article. Its a stand alone cross reference. It should not be embedded into the main article either. An uncluttered and clean layout is important. Ease of use and speed are potentially large factors here.

Rick (talk) 05:04, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

I think it would be best if this article were written like an encyclopædia article, rather than an industry directory. bobrayner (talk) 09:36, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

I'd like to know your detailed rational? Especially as the "encyclopedia article" is already written under SIFI. Note that SIFI covers at least 4 distinct groups: Banks/brokers, Insurance Companies, Financial Market Utilities, and a soon to be added 4th group, Funds (including large/leveraged hedge funds, large mutual funds, huge pension plans, etc.) Frankly, I think having the one article cover the entire SIFI concept (from a global prospective) and then using 4 separate directory pages of firm listings makes a great deal of sense. Remember too that SIFI is both a general term and a specific one. Both the US and the EU have official designations which subject the institution to greater regulatory requirements. Future listings may need to show which country considers which institution "Systemically Important". Do you want all that detail crammed in to the main article? Rick (talk) 19:25, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

In my view it shall be sort of encyclopedic. Someone who will google G-SIBs and come to this page will find just a list of banks but that is not sufficient - wikipeida is an ecyclopedia so each article must be encyclopedic. There should be some encyclopedic description here, or it shall be merged with the other article. I understand your point that this page is linked to that page etc. but that is not how wikipedia works. Each wiki page is encyclopedical, unless it is called a "list", see for example --> List_of_investment_banks <<-- it has a list in the name. If it's not called as list, it shall be encyclopedic. End of story. --Wikijasmin (talk) 23:20, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

The breakdown by region, I see your point about the regions etc, but it makes no sense if you understand finance. These banks are called GLOBAL, because they are global. So an European bank can have a higher share of the Asian market in Derivatives or Currencies than an Asian bank - often the case. These European banks trade from headquarters in Singapore and Hongkong, and are listed on New York Stock Exchange. So it really does not matter if they are European or Asian or American, because they are globally important for any region, they have presence in any region, they are trading in any region, they are listed in several different regions. So I would not worry about breaking it up to regions. Besides the old list that was broken down by regions was outdated. --Wikijasmin (talk) 23:20, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm encouraged some of the logic of the prior listing format has been perceived. One other very critical aspect of the regional listing of g-SIFIs is the easy identification of its primary regulator. Once you enter the legal realm, location becomes critically important. Fraud, bankruptcy, etc. are implemented absolutely on a region by region legal basis. There is no such thing as a "globally registered" financial institution that somehow transcends more than one sovereign nation. Each of the "banks" here are typically bank holding companies consisting of 100's if not 1000's of separate legal entities. It's noted that a large bank's stock is typically listed on more than one exchange. Yes, that is generally true. However I invite a look at the actual trading volume in those shares and determine if 80% or more of the dollar weighted trades of the entity occurs on more than a SINGLE primary exchange? (It does not.) Also note that a stock issues common dividends in a single currency. Foreign banks are generally listed in away markets as a Depositary Receipt. (in America called an ADR). This is primarily a retail product created by "middle men" who perform the servicing and arbitrage trading work (and extract that rent) back to the dominate trading market. Remember too that a bank to be adjudged "systemically important" it must be so designated by one or more regionally based national regulator(s). Whats more, the regulatory reach only extends to the boundaries of that regulator, and no further. Lastly look at the SIFI article. The lead sentence is This article is about banks, insurance companies and financial market utilities deemed systemically important by regulators. For the listing of gSIFI banks, see Global systemically important banks i.e. this directory page. When you put SIFI in Google the WikiPedia article is the top rank. From that article you want a quick "first sentence" link to the actual listing of BANKS (your most likely interest). Once you land on that listing you absolutely want to see region because its critical (as is currency). Remember FSOC makes the SIFI designation for the US. FSB does so in the UK. Not sure if Asia has an official gSIFI listing but if they do that would also be important. If a gSIFI were suddenly in deep financial trouble, threatening the world global financial system (as actually occurred in 2008) its the really up to the home nation's regulators and central bank to step in, prop up, implement orderly restructuring, etc. Financial capacity to do that is limited by that nations specific ability to borrow money quickly, denominated in its home currency, to be paid back by its very own taxpayers. [Think Iceland...] Yet the impact is global, because very large banks are indeed "interconnected". Location, location, location.... don't think it's important? Visit any of these gSIFI's and ride up to the floor where the tax planners are housed. There likely will be an entire floor of them. The corporate records books will fill a wall. They move the bank's legal entities (each located and registered in a specific location) around the globe with a keen eye towards jurisdiction, rule of law, profit opportunity and taxes. Note how the reported profits of the outer most legal entities eventually flow back to the consolidated holding company. Location is clearly critical. Rick (talk) 03:36, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't agree with the region point. The reason why there was breakdown by region originally is because the orignal FSB list had a breakdown by region. There was not other logic to it. If you look at he list of G-SIFIs, it's the biggest bank and everybody knows where those banks are headquartered. Come on, do you really think that someone looking for the list does not know that Deutsche Bank is in Europe and Goldman Sachs in USA? Or do you think someone will think that Mitschubitchi is not headquarter in Asia? If you think it helps to write Europe: Deutsche Bank, BNP Parisbas; Americas: Goldman Sachs, Jp Morgan; Asia: Miziho, Mitschubitchi; then go ahead and do the changes. I don't think it's useful, but I also don't think is harmful. Also it would be good if would use the extra energy to put the correct "citation" for the GSIFIs list, that is missing in the article. --Wikijasmin (talk) 23:10, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Redirect

Agreed. This appeared as a sub-article under the more general article Systemically important financial institution (covering banks, insurance companies, and financial market utilities.

"list type" content formerly presented here has migrated to the more appropriately titled and newer List of systemically important banks. With that tabular type data gone this page contained zero information that wasn't explicitly covered in the main article. So redirect there.

If there reaches a point where there is a full, polished encyclopedia type article covering the the gSIFI BANK topic specifically, that doesn't neatly fit into the main article Systemically important financial institution as it does now, this page can revert back to a regular article page and contain it. Rick (talk) 17:21, 26 January 2013 (UTC)