The latest from Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in the UK’s Telegraph. He points out data from the Bank for International Settlements that shows a steep decline in foreign bank loans to developing countries.
AEP (our pet name for Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, as typing out Ambrose Evans-Pritchard each time gets a bit tedious; much less chance of typos with AEP , too) points out some very interesting food for thought in the article:
- The BIS said in its quarterly report that the markets are “under the spell of monetary easing”, convinced that central banks will keep the asset boom going
- The BIS was the only major watchdog to warn of a bubble before the Lehman crisis, and it has once again begun to fret over junk bonds and frothy asset prices.
- the European Central Bank is constrained by the lack of a genuine fiscal union
AEP also points out how the exposure of British banks to developing world loans is the heaviest:
The BIS figures show that British banks are heavily exposed to the developing world, with $919bn of loans, more than the Americans ($794bn), French ($473bn) or Germans ($307bn)
This leaves British banks most exposed to a slowdown in the global economy
