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The Fed wants banks to make contributions

Banks represent a risk that ultimately the States are obliged to assume, especially when it comes to very large financial institutions. This fact, proved from bank rescues of 2008, coupled with the poor state of public finances in major western economies, has given birth to the idea of additional taxation of the banking sector.

This Friday, the president of the U.S. Federal Reserve has certified the principle. "Any cost incurred by rescue of the government should be covered by a levy on the financial industry, not taxpayers," said Ben Bernanke.

Today, there are already in the United States a fund federal deposit insurance, the FDIC is funded by premiums paid by banks for deposit.The organization monitors the credit risks taken by banks and traditional acts to seize and liquidate those who make the balance sheet (hundreds since the beginning of the year). Not only did the FDIC reached its limits in terms of resources, but it has no counterpart for investment banks, specialized crafts markets, which do not collect public savings. Ben Bernanke would therefore address this deficiency.

The statements by the Fed chief may find an echo in Europe, where governments, or parliaments, are weighing the idea of charging the banks a kind of "insurance premium" in exchange for funding last spring that the State gives them, even implicitly. The Belgian federal budget was the first to explicitly.The United Kingdom is considering the at least one major institution, the Lloyds Banking Group.

In France, the same argument that has been brandished by members (see sidebar). At European Commission Tuesday urged that a dialogue on ways of resolving banking crises, has indicated its preference for funding by the "private sector".

Equity strengthened

In Washington, the debate focuses on the legal means available to the authorities to treat cases of collapse. This Friday, Ben Bernanke highlighted the adoption by Congress of the proposed reform of finance presented by the White House is pressing. The plan for accreditation before the end of the year is not acquired, would allow federal authorities to seize troubled financial institutions, even if they do not have the status of banks.The lack of a framework for such intervention was sorely felt last year when the insurer AIG found itself on the brink of bankruptcy.

Occasionally, this Friday, a conference organized by the Boston Fed, Bernanke also defended the principle of minimum capital requirements more stringent for banks whose health is essential to the stability of the financial system. The Federal Reserve, in consultation with its foreign counterparts, is working to develop rules requiring these banks to raise capital in the form of shares. In all cases, the idea is to shift priority to shareholders and creditors of banks that take risks, to reduce the likelihood of injecting public funds. Bernanke also promised that the Fed would sanction the compensation that would encourage taking undue risks.

"AIG is a burden for America