Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Tuesday Shorts

I was thinking I was the only who was daft enough not to understand how this zillion bail-out would help the US. Seems not. I mean once the Fed buys the cds/cdo instruments, what happens to the banking system? Will it be fully captilised to start lending again? Even to the sub-prime?

Technology is a wonderful thing. This weekend I was having a look on google earth at some of the maps they've put together and you get can some places in some very good detail. I was surprised though that you could see Nyeri well, but not Ngong or Karen. Googlemap isn't much of an improvement on this.

So how many banks will be nationalised (fully), by the time we are through these seismic shifts? Practically every EU country now seems in the throes of panic about whether this or that bank is going to have a depositors run on it. Many of these banks are going under because of serious neglect by regulators during the sunny days. In the UK, the regulatory regime adapted was to only visit the so-called strong banks every 3 years. So why can't they just leave them to the same neglect now?

And how is our banking sector doing? I have concerns about NPLs (given the background of high inflation and the Jan issue). However, Fitch is surprisingly perky about the sector. Still would like to see consolidation, but thinks this unlikely in the short-term. One thing I agree with it, we need to see the likes of BBK and Stanchart listing more of their shareholding.

GoK will now do away with the 30% requirement for the telecom sector. I guess it probably doesn't matter that much given the sector is pretty competitive, but I hope this isn't changed for other sectors.

Foreigners are however running back home to preserve their flanks against the global tsunami.

Won't it have been easier if GoK had thought about removing this VAT charge before raising the electricity bill?


3 comments:

pesa tu said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
pesa tu said...

The aim of the bail out is to clear bank' balance sheets of toxic debts so that they have balance sheets with less risky assets(or those whose risks they understand).Once, you know the risk in a bank u can determine the capital.

If u don't know the risk as it is now u cant determine how much capital u need?

That's why credit mkts r freezing am not sure if your(bank) will collapse tomorrow hence i charge u higher rates.

MainaT said...

Pesa-tu, I think you are paraphrasing press reports. Firtly note that this is a retrospective measure to cure what is already known. The underlying hs not yet been tackled.
That is depreciating assets.Without a solution for this, we'll be here debating the next bail out in the next 6 months