Safe Bank

Interlinkages between the financial sector and the condition of the sovereign determine the existence of many transmission channels through which mutual crises can develop. To support this thesis the author analyzes the most important ones, such as market channel, asset holdings and collateral channel. In addition, the analysis points out that the government guarantees aiming at supporting the banking sector may, in the long run, turn out to be a Pyrrhic victory. Moreover, the relationships between sovereign ratings and banks’ ratings, as well as sovereign debt management, can influence the health of financial system and endanger financial stability. Apart from assessing some possible remedial policy measures that reduce the negative feedback loops between the sovereign crisis and the banking sector vulnerabilities, the author proposes his own solution. Calculating the capital requirements for sovereign bonds holdings basing on risk weights, which are harmonized on the EU-level and regularly updated, would help diminish the adverse externalities affecting the condition of the financial system, arising from the increased risk of country’s default.

The last financial crisis in the world, the role of financial institutions in this process and the big scale of public aid to the financial institutions generate many ideas of introducting new additional tax on financial institutions. There are proposals of financial activity tax, financial transaction tax and deferent bank taxes. The main ideas of special financial taxes are presented in the article. The main subject of the analysis are the macroeconomic consequences of imposing special tax for financial institutions and the role of such tax for greater stability of the financial market. Looking at different proposals of tax, the small financial transaction tax seems to have relatively the smallest negative macroeconomic implication

The financial stability, regarded as the ability of the financial system to enable the efficient allocation of savings, is a public issue of great significance, therefore the responsibility for its maintenance is divided among many institutions acting on the basis of financial safety. The necessity of public intervention is dependent on the financial system specificity and its vulnerability to systemic risk and market failures.
Central banks have the longest tradition of activity in the area of protecting the stability of the financial system. In modern market economy the prime goal of monetary policy conducted by central banks is to maintain the price stability in the long term. The involvement of monetary authority in the maintenance of the financial stability results from its responsibility for the accomplishment of the primary goal. There is no consensus among economists concerning the relations between the financial and monetary stability.

The interest of central banks in maintenance of the financial stability is also connected with their supervisory function over the safety and efficiency of the payment system.Central banks more and more frequently participate in the management of crisis situations, fulfilling their role as the lender of the last resort. In countries where the supervisory functions over the banking sector are entrusted to integrated financial supervision, central banks do not resign from the analysis of threats to the economy with a particular consideration of examining its resilience to potential shocks.

The review of the central banking regulation indicates that the financial crisis initiated in 2007 persuaded many countries to amend its law by expanding the central bank responsibility in the area of financial system safety.

The network features of the financial system are an important issue for the assessment of systemic risk. The distribution and strength of linkages between financial institutions can affect both the intensity of systemic risk and the propagation
mechanisms of risk materialization. These issues, often grouped under the label of interconnectedness of financial institutions, are gaining increased attention of economists and policymakers.
The article reviews data need for the analysis of interconnectedness and descriptive measures of network structure based on graph theory. It then proceeds to review the tools of contagion analysis, used by central banks and regulators to assess the strength of shock transmission channels within the banking sector.
The contribution of interconnectedness of financial institutions to systemic risk will need to be monitored going forward. The main challenge of achieving this are the extensive data needs for this type of analysis.

The publication contains a review of current threats to the banking system in Poland. It refers briefly to criminal activity against banks at the begining of the transformation period and with regard to this background arising changes have been displayed. The aim of criminal law is to eliminate threats as far as possible. The most commonly committed banking offences have been listed and described in the publication. Changes in criminal law introduced over the last 20 years in order to ensure the protection of banks’ services have been presented. Special attention has been paid to frauds, most frequently committed when granting for similar products. The other important subject are international money laundering operations with the use of the banking system. Currently, criminal acts using information systems, mainly cracking or bypassing cybernetic security measures, are committed with increasing frequency. The presented observations are illustrated with statistical data describing the dynamics of some of the banking offences. Typically criminal offences, by which assaults on bank’s branches should be understood, are also included in the reflections.

Basel III is not just an increase in capital requirement. Apart from increasing the required level and the quality of banks’ capital, it comes up with the idea of anticyclical regulatory tool, covering shortcomings of Basel II. The capital buffers in Basel III seem to enhance banks’ resilience against economic cycles as well as other systemic risks. However, banks’ management, shareholders and supervisors have to cooperate much more closely to achieve substantial efficiency of the buffers, especially while setting parameters with respect to the macroeconomic situation. Moreover, additional measures have been proposed to protect the banks improper
risk assessment (leverage ratio), and the loss of liquidity (liquidity ratios).