IMF warns regulators to heed lessons about 'too big to fail' banks

IMF staffers push back against the notion from regulators and politicians that the lessons have been fully learned from the failure of US banks and UBS a year ago

The International Monetary Fund staffers warned: 'Our recent review of supervisory approaches found that the ability and will to act remain critical—and can suffer from unclear mandates or inadequate legal powers, resources, and independence as well as powerful financial sector lobbies. Policymakers need to better empower banking supervisors to act early and with authority if needed.'

The International Monetary Fund has warned about the so-called 'too big to fail banks', a year after the crisis over Credit Suisse and US regional lenders reignited major concerns about the stability of the world's financial system. 

In a blog post, IMF senior staffers Tobias Adrian and Marc Dobler said the forced sale of Credit Suisse to UBS in Switzerland, and the failure in the US of a slew of regional lenders, including Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, and First Republic Bank, shouldn't so easily be forgotten. 

As global interest rates soared, the US lenders had struggled to align their funding between lending and deposits, failings that many regulators around the world subsequently ascribed to poor management. 

The failure of the US banks and UBS in Europe were the worst signs of stress in the global banking system since the global banking crash and which again, in a repeat of events of over a decade earlier, led to private lenders needing to call on public funds.   

The IMF staffers have now pushed back against the notion from regulators and politicians that the lessons have been fully learned. "The bottom line is that progress has been made, but there is still further to go in putting an end to too-big-to-fail," they said in the posting. 

"Last year’s bank failures provided a valuable check on the progress that policymakers are making on the reform agenda and to set course for the remaining ground to be covered. 

"So, what’s the verdict? In short, while significant progress has been made, further work is required," they wrote. 

"Our recent review of supervisory approaches found that the ability and will to act remain critical—and can suffer from unclear mandates or inadequate legal powers, resources, and independence as well as powerful financial sector lobbies. Policymakers need to better empower banking supervisors to act early and with authority if needed," the staffers said. 

"Even smaller banks can be systemic."