...Legal Environments of Business Final Exam Essay SHADOW BANKING SYSTEM We hear a lot of talk about the “shadow banking system” and its crucial role in the financial crisis. But are we taking the time to step back and ask some basic questions: What is shadow banking, where did it come from, how did it operate, what role did it play in recent financial crisis and how do we deal with it going forward? Shadow Banking System definition The financial intermediaries involved in facilitating the creation of credit across the global financial system, but whose members are not subject to regulatory oversight. The shadow banking system also refers to unregulated activities by regulated institutions. Comprising Entities The Shadow banking system entities that make up the system is made up of non-depository banks as well as other financial entities which included insurers, hedge funds, investment banks, money market funds, structured investment vehicles, conduits and monolines. Two examples of well-known shadow banking institutions are Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers. Shadow banking institutions are usually the middle men between the investors and borrowers making it possible for both parties to meet. For instance, if a corporation is looking for funds to borrow, at the same time an institutional investor like Bear Stearns or Lehman Brothers may be willing to lend money. This is where the shadow banking institution steps in to create a passage of funds from investor to the...
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...Deregulation means lowering the laws and restrictions voted by the government, which lowers the government control over how business is done, between who and who. It started with the deregulation of how the loans are used. Before the deregulation, the financials institutions could not use the money of the individuals. But they came public, so they had access to a lot of money provided by the stockholders. This situation lead to two crises in the eighties, and in the nineties. Between 2001 and 2007 happened a period, called “bubble”, of high deregulation and speculation. It lead to the financial crisis we are now still facing. The main point of this essay is to understand how the system have collapsed, who and what was involved. It will also try to explain why the US crisis has spread to the other financial markets all around the world. 1/ The play of the interest rate during the US crisis In the early 2000s, the interest rate was kept down by the Federal Reserve (FED) to boost the economy. As the interest rate was low, people started to borrow money easily. With this money, they started to by houses, and this is how the housing bubble began. The housing market in the USA doubled in a few years. Investment banks understood that people were purchasing houses, so they started to purchase the mortgages (of these individuals) from the lenders. After all the mortgages were...
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...since September 11, 2001. Immediately in the aftermath of Lehman’s bankruptcy, over a hundred firms disclosed their financial exposure to Lehman. Lehman’s collapse, soon became the international economic crisis which affects the different aspects of the regional economic worldwide. The seeds of the crisis can be traced to the low interest rate policies adopted by the Federal Reserve and other central banks after the collapse of the technology stock bubble. In addition, the appetite of Asian central banks for (debt) securities contributed to lax credit. These factors helped fuel a dramatic increase in house prices in the United States and several other countries such as Spain and Ireland. In 2006, this bubble reached its peak in the United States and house prices here and elsewhere started to fall. The fall in house prices led to a fall in the prices of securitized subprime mortgage, affecting financial markets worldwide. In August 2007 the interbank markets, particularly for terms longer than a few days, experienced considerable pressures and central banks were forced to inject massive liquidity. The Federal Reserve and other central banks introduced a wide range of measures trying to improve the functioning of the money markets. During the fall of 2007, the prices of subprime securitizations continued to fall and many financial institutions started to come under strain. In...
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...focusing on subprime mortgages and the housing market bubble. The paper will also analyze Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and how they are linked to the subprime mortgage crisis, including potential solutions to the crisis. References have been added to each section to show which references are being used in which section. References will be added as needed. 1) Abstract a. 120 word overview of paper 2) Introduction a. Introduction to the topic of subprime mortgages and the housing market bubble. b. Timeline of the crisis and housing market bubble burst 3) Discussion Content a. Definitions and background information on the following topics: i. Mortgages ii. Housing Market iii. Subprime Mortgages 1. Demyanyk, Y., & Van Hemert, O. (2011). Understanding the Subprime Mortgage Crisis. Review of Financial Studies, 24(6), 1848-1880. 2. Karikari, J., Voicu, I., & Fang, I. (2011). FHA vs. Subprime Mortgage Originations: Is FHA the Answer to Subprime Lending?. Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, 43(4), 441-458. doi.10.1007/s11146-009-9218-7. iv. Housing Market Bubble Burst b. Overview and causes of the subprime mortgage crisis i. Fixed mortgage versus floating 1. Demyanyk, Y., & Van Hemert, O. (2011). Understanding the Subprime Mortgage Crisis. Review of Financial Studies, 24(6), 1848-1880. ii. High risk mortgage loans and lending/borrowing practices 1. Peterson, C.L. (2009). Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Home Mortgage Foreclosure Crisis. Loyola Journal...
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...Economic effects of subprime lending A subprime lending is an option for individuals that have difficulty meeting mortgage payment schedules or for individuals who have low credit scores and considered risky borrowers. For example, an applicant with a low credit score of 500 will have a very difficult time locating a loan. Subprime lending comes with a high cost to borrowers. Lenders see bad credit applicants as riskier than applicants with better credit scores. Borrowers in turn pay for this risk by accepting loans with a higher interest rate. Subprime lenders offered the realization of the American dream of home ownership to borrowers who would otherwise be denied credit. Interest only loan options were offered, and combined with the mortgage-backed securities (MBS) added so much liquidity that in turn created a housing boom. Over time borrowers end up paying higher interest rates with zero payment application against their loan amount. Unemployment setbacks that ultimately resulted in defaults, added to the economic crisis. Consequently, more homes were placed in a market that is already saturated with newly constructed homes. This created less demand resulting to more houses that builders were unable to sell. Controls of banking rules and regulations during the 1980’s were relaxed, and monitoring policies for these were not the highest priority. Jimmy Carter’s “Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980” was a window for financial institutions...
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...required to develop respective business continuity planning in accordance to the 7 high-level principles. There are various incidents within the last decade that has resulted in major operational disruption to financial industry. However, with the guidance of the 7 high-level principles, most of the participants were able to cope with crisis well and survive through the crisis. In this report, several case studies were researched and commented on their business continuity planning. Subprime crisis which caused the collapse of Lehman Brothers has caused a significant stir in the financial industry. Many counterparties ended up with huge exposure and default due to the fall of Lehman Brothers. However, Euroclear was able to manage the crisis well after it activated its crisis management plan which has been developed before the crisis. Similarly, terrorist’s attack on New York World Trade Center has not only caused major security issues but has also significantly affecting the financial industry. Bank of America and Deutsche Bank were the direct victims of the terrorist attack. Both banks remained sound operation and survived through the crisis due to well business continuity planning. Besides, Hurricane Gustav that caused massive destructions in United States in 2008 has crippled the local banking system in Louisiana and Mississippi. BancorpSouth Bank quickly activated its business continuity plans shortly after the announcement of the hurricane. Various actions and measures...
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...It is reasonable to say that the recent subprime mortgage crisis happened due to a complex combination of negligent practices by many of the multiple stakeholders directly involved in the real estate industry. That being said, the accounting profession, being the critical player that it was (and still is), played a critical role in the development of this economic crisis due to the practices that they used during the auditing process of key industry players in the market at that time. As a foundation to this argument, chapter one of the text states that, accounting is the process of identifying, measuring and communicating economic information about an organization for the purpose of making decisions and informed judgments. (Marshall-McManus-Viele). It is the accountants responsibility to identify and offer the relevant financial data necessary to make appropriate business decisions. In reading about cases such as the infamous New Century “mishap”, one gets the impression that the accounting methods used, completely misrepresented the current financial situation of the company which needed to show a strong financial situation in order to maintain it’s solid market position and continue to see a steady influx in transactions. After further review combined with KPMG’s involvement, they found themselves with inconsistencies that led to a more than significant hole in their numbers ultimately leading them to bankruptcy (along with other economic factors). Referring back...
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...TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTERS CHAPTER 1 – Abstract 3 CHAPTER 2 – Introduction 4 CHAPTER 3 – Body Paragraphs 4 CHAPTER 4 – Discussion 5 CHAPTER 5 – Conclusion 8 REFERENCES 8 Sub-Prime Mortgage Crisis: What Went Wrong? Abstract: The crisis of subprime mortgages has become a huge problem in the U.S. financial industry in the last few years and has affected the global financial market too. The smaller mortgage companies fell one by one until Bear Stearns also fell; then the “Titanic” of the mortgage world – Lehman Brothers – also fell. The ripple effect of the fall of Lehman Brothers coupled with the near death of AIG, nearly crashed the financial market and sent shock waves through the global markets. The effect of the crisis is still being felt in the housing market with no clear resolution in sight. This essay emphasizes the caution of this crisis to our economy. I. Introduction The mortgage crisis in 2008 didn’t have to happen but it did. Why did it happen? At a first glance, it seems it came out of nowhere but a deeper analysis shows that a series of events such as the explosion of sub-prime mortgages on the market and the easy accessibility of credit set the stage for the meltdown. II. Body Paragraphs A. In 2000 when President Clinton was in office, he signed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act which led to the unregulated trading of the Credit Default Swaps (CDS). B. Sub-prime originators invented the mortgage to sell...
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...New Leaders of Financial Giants – Case of Citi Group and Merrill Lynch: Question 1: Introduction This report will review the precarious positions of Citigroup Inc. and Merrill Lynch at the beginning of the subprime mortgage crisis. Both companies had been hit hard by the recent economic problems, and both had recently hired new management in an attempt to navigate through these difficult times. Since risk management failures were viewed as the primary catapult of the crisis, the thinking was that managers with risk management experience would be able to introduce innovative techniques to improve the respective company’s positions. The report will analyze some of the solutions that were proposed, and attempt to apply options analysis through binary trees to quantify these proposals. The Subprime Mortgage Crisis of 2008 Before analyzing the current predicaments of the two companies in the report, an understanding of the subprime mortgage crisis (which includes a discussion on MBS’s and CDO’s) is necessary. An entity, known as the ‘Servicer’, issues debt securities called Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS) and raises funds. The funds are used to grant home loans or mortgages. The borrowers or homeowners make monthly payments to the services. These payments include both principal and interest components. The servicer transfers these payments to Mortgage Backed Security Holders or the investors after deducting some spread which can be viewed as profit margin or...
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...The Role of Financial Institutions & Risk Management in Subprime Crisis Vikrant Joshi The Role of Financial Institutions & Risk Management in The Subprime Crisis This paper discusses the role of financial institutions & their risk management strategies in the subprime mortgage crisis. The downturn in the housing and mortgage markets precipitated the first phase of the financial crisis in August 2007 when the solvency of a number of large financial firms was threatened by huge losses in complex structured financial securities. Why did these firms have such high concentrations in mortgage-related securities? Given the information available to firms at the time, these high concentrations in mortgage-related securities violated basic principles of modern risk management. Introduction: This paper analyzes the role of financial institutions in the light of risk management and corporate governance in the events leading to the subprime crisis. This paper explores the following question: Given the tremendous advances in financial risk measurement and management, why was the solvency of large and complex financial firms threatened by large losses in the mortgage market? First, the subprime mortgage market was about $1.3 trillion. Even a very high percentage loss in this market seemed manageable, given the overall size of U.S. and world debt markets. Commonly cited reasons such as high mortgage defaults in 2006 and 2007 do not provide a sufficient...
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...Example of Financial Illusion Introduction The emergence of an increasing number of ‘financial illusions’ in the current state of financial markets around the world casts doubts over the famous and widely accepted efficient market hypothesis. The efficient market hypothesis (EMH) indicates that, at any time, prices fully and instantaneously reflect all available relevant information on a particular stock or market (Fama, 1970). EMH also suggests that it is impossible to “beat the market” because stock market efficiency causes existing share prices to always incorporate and reflect all relevant information. Thus, according to the EMH, it is impossible for investors to either purchase undervalued stocks or sell stocks for inflated prices because stocks are always traded at their fair value on stock exchanges. Another reason is because no one has access to information that is not already available to everyone else. One important characteristic of the EMH is its assumption that agents are rational. Rational agents is agents which has a clear preferences, models uncertainty via expected values, and always chooses to perform the action that results in the optimal outcome from all the feasible actions. Their actions depend on their preferences, their information of the current situation; which may come from past experiences, the actions, duties and obligations available and the estimated or actual benefits that the agents can get after the actions. In reality, however, agents are...
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...mostly transparent, the bond market consisted of primarily large institutions and escaped serious regulation. This lack of legislative control played a great part in allowing the credit default swaps on subprime mortgage bonds, CDO’s, and the eventual collapse of the subprime market. Following the subprime mortgage crisis, the Department of the Treasury released a new regulatory plan, The Department of the Treasury Blueprint for a Modernized Financial Regulatory Structure, which is referred to as “the Paulson Plan.” The Paulson Plan was completed in March 2008 and consisted of a series of short-term and intermediate-term recommendations that were meant to immediately improve and reform the U.S. regulatory structure. The short term recommendations included: modernization of the current President’s Working Group on Financial Markets Executive Order, the creation of a new federal commission, the Mortgage Origination Commission, whose purpose is to evaluate, rate, and report on the adequacy of each state’s system for licensing and regulating participants in the mortgage origination process, and the Federal Reserve provide liquidity to the financial system. These short term recommendations were intended to improve regulatory coordination and oversight to avoid a financial crisis, while the intermediate recommendations focused on modernizing the regulatory structure. The intermediate recommendations included: phasing out the federal thrift charter and transitioning to a national...
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...The mortgage crisis began in the early 2000’s when homes were increasing in value. Interest rates on mortgages were also low during that time. People thought it was a sure investment to buy a home with the low rates and increasing values. People simply thought the values would never stop going up. During this time people with bad credit could also qualify as subprime borrowers; in addition to this, there was people who also took on high risk loans and were qualified without much documentation checks (Pritchard). Banks also sold the loans so they were not liable anymore for the bad loans. These were sold as mortgage backed securities and were sold to a variety of different entities such as hedge funds, individuals, banks, and pension funds. Because they were spread throughout different sectors, it had an even more profound effect (Pritchard). House values stopped going up and people started to realize they bought too much home than they could afford. Rates also started to go up on adjustable rate mortgages. People would either get defaulted on the load, try to renegotiate the loan, or walk away from the home. As this started to happen more and more, the banks started to lose money. The banks wanted to limit their exposure to this market and stopped lending because they didn’t know if they would get their money back. One thing that has been done to ease the crisis is the HARP (Homeowner Affordable Refinance Program), introduced by the Obama Administration in 2009 (Amadeo). This...
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...The U.S. subprime mortgage crisis was a set of events and conditions that led to the late-2000s financial crisis, characterized by a rise in subprimemortgage delinquencies and foreclosures, and the resulting decline of securities backed by said mortgages. The percentage of new lower-quality subprime mortgages rose from the historical 8% or lower range to approximately 20% from 2004 to 2006, with much higher ratios in some parts of the U.S.[1][2] A high percentage of these subprime mortgages, over 90% in 2006 for example, were adjustable-rate mortgages.[3] These two changes were part of a broader trend of lowered lending standards and higher-risk mortgage products.[3][4] Further, U.S. households had become increasingly indebted, with the ratio of debt to disposable personal income rising from 77% in 1990 to 127% at the end of 2007, much of this increase mortgage-related.[5] After U.S. house sales prices peaked in mid-2006 and began their steep decline forthwith, refinancing became more difficult. As adjustable-rate mortgages began to reset at higher interest rates (causing higher monthly payments), mortgage delinquencies soared. Securities backed with mortgages, including subprime mortgages, widely held by financial firms, lost most of their value. Global investors also drastically reduced purchases of mortgage-backed debt and other securities as part of a decline in the capacity and willingness of the private financial system to support lending.[1] Concerns about the soundness...
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...Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. The control break downs of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. included the massive amount of money borrowed to fund its investments. A considerable portion of this investment was in real estate, which made the investment defenseless against a fall in the market. Lehman also used one of its small companies to reallocate investments off its books. The firm was active in the market for Residential Mortgage Backed Securities (RMBS). The process involved buying several residential mortgages, combining them and selling them as securities. RMBS buyers actually purchased claims on the cash flow generated by the securities. Lehman produced a great amount of these securities, making the demand high for mortgage originators. This led mortgage originators to extend credit to people who were not credit worthy, or did not have enough income causing these people to have upside down mortgages on their homes when housing prices plummeted in 2006. In 2000, the stock market started to decline and the Federal Reserve significantly reduced interest rates. These lower interest rates caused inexpensive mortgage payments, which lead to a large demand for homes. Homeowners took advantage of the low interest rates and refinanced their mortgages. In 2008, Lehman announced that they would file for bankruptcy after a huge loss in the market, a loss of investors and their inability to find an adequate buyer. Soon after, their collapse set the market into panic mode...
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