Gesamtprogramm 2012 - Maleki Conferences GmbH

Grußwort · Welcome
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Welcome address by the German Federal Minister of
Finance, Dr. Wolfgang Schäuble, at the
15th EURO FINANCE WEEK in Frankfurt am Main
Market economies need well-functioning financial markets
which ensure (i) that finite capital resources are deployed
efficiently to the benefit of the real economy and thereby
to the overall society and (ii) that risks are allocated to
those parties that can bear them. One of the key lessons
of the financial crisis is that financial markets – if left to
their own devices – do not adequately fulfil these two central
tasks. To a significant extent, the crisis was caused by
overly one-sided policies of deregulation which ignored
the fact that financial markets – like all markets – need a
regulatory framework to function properly and to benefit
society on a sustained, long-term basis. The Federal
Government has learned the lessons of the financial crisis
and, step by step, has created a new regulatory framework
for financial markets since the beginning of the current
legislative period.
Our financial market policies adhere to five key principles:
We are ensuring that accountability is enforced again:
Those who stand to make a profit must shoulder the associated
risks. That is why Basel III (CRD IV) will strengthen
banks’ equity capital and structure bank managers’ pay in
such a way that they will have an incentive to do business
sustainably.
We are enhancing the financial system’s overall resilience to
crisis: Troubled individual banks and short-lived investment
trends should not have the ability to shake the entire
financial system or hold the state to ransom. That is why
we adopted the Restructuring Act, which establishes clear
rules on the reorganisation and winding up of large banks
at risk of insolvency. We are also taking steps to curb
dangerous high-frequency trading between error-prone
computers.
We are increasing the transparency of markets and products:
We cannot accept situations in which we find out only
too late that purported financial innovations are actually
ticking time bombs for the overall economy. That is why
we are regulating over-the-counter trading at national and
European level and moving more transactions to transparent
stock exchanges. In addition, we are committed to the
resolute regulation of shadow banking and are reinforcing
consumer protection.
We are ensuring that parties responsible for the crisis
share the costs: The systematic privatisation of profits and
the nationalisation of losses contradict any normal sense
of justice. That is why, via the bank levy, banks are now
being involved from the outset in financing possible future
support measures, and that is why we are advocating a
financial transaction tax in Europe.
We are strengthening the enforceability of oversight: Even
the best rules are of no use if they cannot be resolutely
enforced. That is why we have systemically strengthened
national financial market supervision, and that is why we
also want to enhance European banking supervision.
It is the task of national and supranational regulators to
flesh out these rules and put them into practice. The task
of financial institutions is to honour both the letter and
the spirit of such rules. The regulation of financial markets
is not an annoying burden for financial institutions; rather,
it is an indispensable precondition for sustainable, solid
economic success. The fact that the economy requires a
regulatory framework – at both national and international
level – is a basic principle of the founding fathers of
the social market economy, and this fact holds true for
financial markets as well. For this reason, one of the guiding
objectives of the Federal Government’s financial market
policies is to ensure that the principles of the social market
economy are once again brought to bear within financial
markets.
Dr. Wolfgang Schäuble
Minister of Finance of the
Federal Republic of Germany, Berlin
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