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G-7 finance officials aim to prevent crises
Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Apr 12, 2008 by Jeannine Aversa Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- Finance officials from the world's top economic powers endorsed a plan Friday aimed at preventing another financial crisis like the credit and mortgage debacles that erupted in the United States and quickly sent tremors around the globe.
"Rapid implementation" of the plan "will not only enhance the resilience of the global financial system for the longer term but should help to support confidence and improve the functioning of the markets," the Group of Seven officials said in a joint statement.
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke hosted the G-7 discussions, where officials embraced a plan that would seek to increase the openness, or transparency, of financial markets and to sharpen regulators' response to urgent financial problems.
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Besides the United States, the other members of the G-7 are Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada. Friday's action preceded the weekend meetings of the 185-nation International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
Risks to the United States and the global economy have intensified since finance officials from the Group of Seven countries last gathered here in October. Many economists now believe the United States has fallen into a recession, and the odds of a worldwide downturn have risen sharply -- to one in four -- according to the IMF, a global financial institution.
Even as the financial officials talked about the best ways to battle future financial emergencies, Wall Street took another plunge. The Dow Jones tumbled more than 250 points.
"The turmoil in global financial markets remains challenging and more protracted than we had anticipated," the G-7 officials said.
In the United States, where credit troubles sprang forth with a vengeance last August and quickly spread financial turmoil worldwide, the damage is sorely felt. Foreclosures have surged to record highs, job losses in the first three months of this year have neared the staggering quarter-million mark and financial companies have racked up billions of dollars in losses. The once mighty Bear Stearns, the fifth-largest investment bank in the United States, crashed, prompting a takeover by JP Morgan in a controversial deal backed by the Fed.
Worldwide financial losses could approach $1 trillion over two years, the IMF said earlier this week.
"Given the significant short-term downside risks, we are taking action," Paulson said of the G-7's decision to adopt the plan. "There may be more bumps in the road," he warned.
The Financial Stability Forum, a group that includes central bankers and major financial regulators from around the world, developed the plan adopted by the G-7. The forum is headed by Mario Draghi, chief of Italy's central bank, who presented his group's findings to the other G-7 officials during their closed-door meeting.
The plan is designed to make financial markets less secretive and improve supervision, which in theory would help prevent a repeat of the current financial debacles.
It calls for strengthening oversight to make sure financial companies have sufficient capital, cash and risk-management practices to handle problems. It also would bolster transparency and the valuation of complex investment products, improve the operation of credit-rating agencies, strengthen authorities' responsiveness to risks and put in place arrangements to deal with stress in the financial system.
One recommendation is to have banks, securities firms and other financial institutions disclose their holdings of risky securities, such as those backed by subprime mortgages given to people with tarnished credit. Those subprime mortgages, which soured with the collapse of the U.S. housing market, were at the heart of the U.S. crisis.
Another involves having credit-rating agencies distinguish the ratings they give for regular securities, such as corporate bonds, from those they assign to more complex investments. These agencies have been criticized for contributing to the problems by not accurately assigning risk to mortgage-backed investments.
Yet another recommendation would strengthen supervisors' guidance to banks for dealing with cash crunches and having banks run "stress tests" to see how they cope under different scenarios of financial strain.
The plan also calls for the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, an international body of regulators, to make sure banks have enough capital to cover any potential losses.
The G-7 officials were meeting at a time when the value of the U.S. dollar was hitting record lows against the euro and has fallen sharply against Japan's yen.
Copyright C 2008 Deseret News Publishing Co.
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