By Steven K. Beckner

NEW YORK (MNI) – The European Central Bank has not ruled out
purchasing private commercial paper in addition to the government bonds
it has already been buying since last month, ECB Executive Board member
Lorenzo Smaghi said Wednesday.

Smaghi, talking to reporters following a speech to a Squam Lake
Group conference in New York, expressed satisfaction with how the ECB’s
bond purchases have gone so far and said other kinds of purchases are
“under consideration.”

“We’re not excluding anything,” he said.

Smaghi told MNI he was referring specifically to “private paper” or
commercial paper as something that was “under consideration.”

Smaghi defended the ECB’s extensions of extraordinary liquidity
measures, saying there are “clearly problems with the functioning of the
money markets” in Europe. He said it has been necessary to make banks
“confident” in the availability of credit from the central bank.

He said new financial regulations to limit systemic risk must take
into account their potential effects on economic growth.

Earlier, in responding to questions from the conference audience,
Smaghi expressed concern that national bank supervisors tend to operate
to advance the interests of their own banks and warned that this may
necessitate eventual “consolidation” of banking supervision in Europe.

But at the same time, he said international efforts at coordinated
financial reform may fall short of the mark and leave intact elements of
the “shadow banking system.”

Smaghi said that “light touch supervision” has been “a problem” in
Europe, adding that “the fact that supervision remains at the national
level creates incentives not always compatible with the most rigorous
interpretation of rules and supervision.”

He added he “shouldn’t comment too much on recent events.”

Smaghi said the ECB “has encouraged supervisors to be as
independent as possible, transparent as possible.” But he said that
remains “a challenge in Europe.

Smaghi said that if national supervisors are “not able to do that
over time it will imply a loss of responsibilities on their sides and a
move toward more European” supervision.”

“If supervision … remains at national level going forward … (it
can continue) only if supervisors are willing to cooperate more and be
more transparent,” he continued. If not, “the next step is
consolidation.”

Smaghi said “the jury is out” on how effective U.S. financial
regulatory reform will prove to be, but declined to grade the
legislation beyond that.

As for efforts to reform international, risk-weighted capital
standards — so-called Basel III — Smaghi expressed concern that “much
less is being done on the shadow banking system…I’m much more
concerned about that.”

Smaghi said the U.S. banking system may emerge better regulated but
with “parts of the financial system with still a lot of shadows.”

“The temptation for the regulated sector to imitate the shadow will
be strong,” he said.

Smaghi predicted there will eventually be a “compromise” on Basel
III, but said there should be no rush, observing, “the problem is not
the deadline but the quality of the product.”

He said it is important that any compromise not “leave too much
leeway to regulators.”

Smaghi said attempts to limit systemic risk through macroprudential
regulation by the Federal Reserve or others is “potentially dangerous”
if it ends up meaning either that “nobody fails” or that big, disruptive
failures are allowed to occur.

In other comments, Smaghi lamented that failed insurance giant AIG
“chose its own supervisor and it chose the weakest.” He called that
“totally unacceptable.”

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