Cazaly called on a capital APRA operetta
The work is not even half done yet by APRA on bank capital in Australia. Conclusive guidance on risk weighting for the major banks (and maybe everybody) remains a work in progress, or too sensitive to share.The "all fine, buy banks" snap reaction to APRA's "Information Paper on 'unquestionably strong' capital benchmarks" - it's a miscue.A connected square of insiders will have been favourably positioned on the long side yesterday morning, the gain on the day nothing drastic at plus 3.3 per cent, and worthy.Entrenched biases in many places yesterday populated the avalanche of introspection into APRA's Information Paper.Prejudice and preconception were in evidence here at Banking Day, too.A "hey ho, let's go" tone overtook the analysis on this landmark in the left wheel of Australian public policy on banking. But let's turn up the worry factor.Among market noise now, bravado storytelling, a share from banks' economists, on the novelty of "no recession since Star Trek played for the 100th time."Like the banking crises due every seven years (according to the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, which has suggested that as the frequency of financial crises) leaves Australia's so far overdue for a dire turn, you're best placed lining up with the permabears.The genesis, the endogenous imagination of it all, is an "out there Cazaly" call on credit. The perennial property bubble.The number one risk in Australia is a crisis in banking. Like a recession (as Keating said, now 300 odd moons ago) a banking crisis is chronically overdue.It's ten years since Bankwest and Suncorp and Macquarie and NAB and Westpac and many more in Australia's banking laboured in dread of failure and rescue and ruin.The epic St George dance with Westpac.Failures before that now have "way back when" status - it's 27 years since Pyramid, the State Bank collapses and all that followed from way back then.