UK Banks Pass Stress Test

The Bank of England has, for the second year running, conducted stress tests on seven major UK banks.

All passed.

However, Royal Bank of Scotland and Standard Chartered were the weakest and were found not to have enough capital strength. They both took steps to raise capital, and as such were not told to come up with a new plan.

Mervyn King Chides US Authorities

Mervyn King is less than impressed with the US over its "shoot first, ask questions later" approach to financial regulation, wrt dragging Standard Chartered through the mire of public opinion before even completing its investigation.

King is quoted in Boston.com:

"I think all that the U.K. authorities would ask is that various regulatory bodies that are investigating a particular case try to work together and refrain from making too many public statements until the investigation is completed."

King is too polite to say that this is in fact a trade war between the US and UK.

The USA's Little List

Standard Chartered (a British bank) finds itself on an ever growing American list of British banks that have been accused of all manner of "dastardly" deeds of alleged money laundering etc, that "in theory" threaten the safety of the USA.

Unsurprisingly, as a result of the public witch hunt and accusations, shares in Standard Chartered have fallen by 24%; as the USA lets loose in the media in a concerted attempt to bring the bank to heal before any evidence has actually been presented in court.

Standard Chartered deny the accusations.

Does anyone else not find it a tad "odd" that the US authorities are not pursuing US banks with such vigour through the courts and the media?

As one unnamed London based director allegedly emailed in 2006:

"You f****** Americans. Who are you to tell us, the rest of the world, that we’re not going to deal with Iranians.”