Intensive Lecture: "International Banking and Liquidity Allocation: Cross-border Financial Services versus Multinational Banking"
October 3, 2009
On October 3, 2009 Professor Uwe Vollmer of University of Leipzig (Germany) presented a lecture entitled “International Banking and Liquidity Allocation: Cross-border Financial Services versus Multinational Banking” at the Keio University main campus.
Professor Vollmer’s lecture can be summarized as follows. Bank statutory capital requirements are presently becoming a major policy issue. In particular, the phenomenon of pro-cyclicality – whereby banks lend aggressively during business expansions because their share prices rise pushing up the value of their equity capital and conversely suddenly pull back on lending during contractions because the value of their equity capital drops – has been identified as a problem. Prof. Vollmer used case studies from Europe, and noted how capital requirements have different effects on banks advancing into foreign countries depending on whether they form joint ventures or establish holding companies for foreign market entry.
Over 30 students attended the lecture, which was followed by a lively question and answer session.