Things we're reading today include:
Lloyds warns of EU sell-off threat (Guardian)
Lloyds Banking Group prepares shareholders for possible price of receiving state aid (Times)
Lloyds boss's account drained by Barclays thief (Daily Mail)
New chief, new focus at the LSE (Financial Times)
BofA seeks to repay $45bn by end of year (Financial Times)
Fresh bail-out hopes lift GMAC (Financial Times)
IMF praise for UK recession plan (BBC)
More banks may have to be nationalised, says IMF (Telegraph)
Downgrades loom for Spanish banks (Financial Times)
Tim Geithner to reform US financial regulation (Telegraph)
US may create a financial-products regulator (Times)
Geithner says US starting to heal (Times)
Fund managers see green shoots in world economy (Times)
Experian spots signs of recovery (Telegraph)
China is preparing for a world where the yuan trumps the dollar (Telegraph)
Trader banned for concealing $10m bet after long boozy lunch (Telegraph)
And an interesting comment from Intel's retiring Chairman Craig Barrett, after being hit by a $1.45 billion fine for anti-competitive practices by the European Commission:
"The antitrust rules and regulations seem designed for a different
era.
"When you look at high-tech companies, with the high R&D
budgets, specialization and market creation they need to hold their big
market shares, it's so very different from the old world of oil
companies and auto makers that the antitrust regulations were designed
for. They are out of sync with reality.
"And how do you reconcile European regulators, who don't believe
that any company should have more than 50% market share -- even a
market that company created -- with the way we operate here?
"Of course,
now it seems as if our Justice Department is preparing to march in
lock-step behind Europe. In the end, all they are going to do is create
barriers to companies growing, entering into new markets, and bringing
new technologies into those markets."
This is interesting, particularly as Tim Geithner's about to radically overhaul US financial regulations. Maybe we should be encouraging monopolies in high risk markets?
Chris M Skinner
Chris Skinner is best known as an independent commentator on the financial markets through his blog, TheFinanser.com, as author of the bestselling book Digital Bank, and Chair of the European networking forum the Financial Services Club. He has been voted one of the most influential people in banking by The Financial Brand (as well as one of the best blogs), a FinTech Titan (Next Bank), one of the Fintech Leaders you need to follow (City AM, Deluxe and Jax Finance), as well as one of the Top 40 most influential people in financial technology by the Wall Street Journal's Financial News. To learn more click here...
