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Opening Bell: Greece has two weeks, European banking crash 2.0, RBS found guilty in New York

With talks between Greece and its international creditors still at a standstill, the country's&nb...
Newstalk
Newstalk

07.29 12 May 2015


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Opening Bell: Greece has two w...

Opening Bell: Greece has two weeks, European banking crash 2.0, RBS found guilty in New York

Newstalk
Newstalk

07.29 12 May 2015


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With talks between Greece and its international creditors still at a standstill, the country's Finance Minister, Yanis Varoufakis has warned that the Greek government faces a cash crunch in the next two weeks.

"The liquidity issue is a terribly urgent issue. It's common knowledge, let's not beat around the bush," Mr Varoufakis said after yesterday's Eurogroup meeting.

He continued: "From the perspective (of timing), we are talking about the next couple of weeks."

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"If the Greek government thinks it must hold a referendum, then let it hold a referendum," said German Finance Minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble going into yesterday's meeting. This would allow the Greek government to seek a mandate to break election promises to push through economic reforms.

When this was put to Mr Varoufakis he said that is was one option - but it was not something that the Greek government was planning to do.

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Research shows that European banks are as likely to fail today as they were in the run-up to the global economic crash seven years ago.

Economists looked at the policies introduced after 2008 designed to reduce the risk. Their investigation found that despite efforts to improve the banking system, a repeat of the crisis is possible.

Banks in France, Spain and Italy are described as being highly vulnerable to failure while banks in northern Europe are believed to be more secure.

Dr Nikos Paltalidis, of the University of Portsmouth Business School, led the research which has been published in the Journal of Banking and Finance, he said: "The European banking system remains highly vulnerable and conducive to financial contagion, which implies that the policies designed to reduce systemic risk are not necessarily doing the job."

Adding: "The findings suggest we might need additional policies to better protect the eurozone and increase the resilience of the financial system."

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Some seven years after the 2008 global financial crash questions remain unanswered, yesterday a judge in New York ruled that Japanese bank Nomura Holdings and Royal Bank of Scotland were guilty of misleading Fannie Mae and Freddi Mac by selling them mortgage bonds that contained numerous errors and misrepresentations.

“The magnitude of falsity, conservatively measured, is enormous,” wrote Judge Denise L. Cote of Federal District Court in her highly critical 361-page decision.

The banks had argued that the housing crash, and not deceptive loan documents caused the bonds to collapse.

She continues: "The origination and securitisation of these defective loans not only contributed to the collapse of the housing market, the very macroeconomic factor that defendants say caused the losses [...] but once that collapse started, improperly underwritten loans were hit hardest and drove the collapse even further.”

The two banks are now expected to face steep fines.

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Carlsberg is selling more beer, but it has failed to return to profit. In the three months to March 31st the company reported a net loss of DKr90m (€12m). Revenues rose by 4 percent to DKr13.47bn (€1.8bn).

The company is working on streamlining its businesses and becoming more efficient.

Chief executive Jørgen Buhl Rasmussen commented on the figures: "The Group's performance in the traditionally small Q1 was in line with our expectations. Our commercial activities yielded good initial results and we achieved strong overall market share performance."


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