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page 116 chapter II
I And, addressing my own profession, banks must
again begin to rely more on their own expertise and
plain common sense. And they must review their
own set of values and insist on strict compliance
with them – but I‘ll come back to that later.
I Another element of improved market transparency
is the availability of more information on the risks
of market players. This particularly applies to the
work of hedge funds.
I Moreover, the accounting rules ought to be
changed. The system of valuation at current market
prices has proven successful, but when the markets
are inactive, a “fair value” can frequently not be determined
and often only estimated.
All in all, we can note that all market players are therefore
called upon to make a contribution. Only if we all
work together can we succeed in getting the worldwide
situation back to normal.
2. Sustainable and value-based principles of corporate
governance
The financial markets will never be the same after this
crisis, which began on the US property market. But are
more liquidity and better regulation enough to stabilise
the financial markets in the long term? I say: these
measures are necessary and important. Because banks,
in particular, fulfil central, indispensable tasks in our
modern economy, which is based on the division of
labour. Banks are the mediators of transactions in the
money cycle. They handle payments for other players
in the economy and, above all, they mediate between
those who want to invest money and those who need to
borrow money for investments and purchases. So, banks
bear special responsibility in and for the economy.