银行到底怎么了

type

status

date

slug

summary

What's wrong with the banks？

银行出了什么问题

Rising interest rates have left banks exposed. Time to fix the system— again Only ten days ago you might have thought that the banks had been fixed after the nightmare of the financial crisis in 2007-09. Now it is clear that they still have the power to cause a heart-stopping scare. A ferocious run at Silicon Valley Bank on March 9th saw $42bn in deposits flee in a day. SVB was just one of three American lenders to collapse in the space of a week. Regulators worked frantically over the weekend to devise a rescue. Even so, customers are asking once again if their money is safe.

不断上升的利率使银行暴露问题。是时候再次修复这个系统了仅仅十天前，你可能认为在2007-09年金融危机的噩梦之后，银行已经被修复。现在很明显，它们仍然有能力造成令人心惊肉跳的恐慌。3月9日，硅谷银行发生了一起凶猛的挤兑事件，一天之内就有420亿美元的存款流失。硅谷银行只是一周内倒闭的三家美国贷款机构之一。监管机构在周末拼命地工作，以制定救援方案。即便如此，客户再次询问他们的钱是否安全。

scare n.恐慌 ferocious adj.激烈的 in the space of 在...期间 frantically adv.拼命地 devise v.设计

Investors have taken fright. Fully $229bn has been wiped off the market value of America's banks so far this month, a fall of 17%. Treasury yields have tumbled and markets now reckon the Federal Reserve will begin cutting interest rates in the summer. Share prices of banks in Europe and Japan have plunged, too. Credit Suisse, which faces other woes, saw its stock fall by 24% on March 15th and on March 16th it sought liquidity support from the Swiss central bank. Fourteen years since the financial crisis, questions are once again swirling about how fragile banks are, and whether regulators have been caught out.

投资者已经受到了惊吓。本月到目前为止，美国银行的市场价值已经被抹去了2290亿美元，下降了17%。国债收益率暴跌，市场现在估计美联储将在夏季开始降息。欧洲和日本的银行股价也出现了暴跌。面临其他困境的瑞士信贷银行，其股票在3月15日下跌了24%，3月16日它向瑞士中央银行寻求流动性支持。金融危机发生14年后，关于银行有多脆弱，以及监管机构是否已经被暴露存在过失的问题再次涌现。

The high-speed collapse of SVB has cast light onan underappreciated risk within the system. When interest rates were low and asset prices high the Californian bank loaded up on long-term bonds. Then the Fed raised rates at its sharpest pace in four decades, bond prices plunged and the bank was left with huge losses. America's capital rules do not require most banks to account for the falling price of bonds they plan to hold until they mature. Only very large banks must mark to market all of their bonds that are available to trade. But, as SVB discovered, if a bank wobbles and must sell bonds, unrecognized losses become real.

SVB的高速崩溃让人看到了系统内一个未被重视的风险。当利率低、资产价格高时，加州银行大量购买长期债券。然后，美联储以四十年来最迅猛的速度加息，债券价格暴跌，银行面临巨大损失。美国的资本规则并不要求大多数银行对他们计划持有到到期的债券的价格下跌作出说明。只有非常大的银行必须将其所有可供交易的债券按市值计价。但是，正如SVB发现的那样，如果一家银行摇摆不定并且必须出售债券，未确认的损失就会变成现实。

take fright 受惊吓 wipe off 清除 Treasury yield 债券收益率 reckon v.认为 plunge v.俯冲，暴跌 woe n.麻烦，问题 liquidity n.（资产）流动性 swirling adj.盘旋的 catch out 让人明白

underappreciated adj.被低估的 mark to market 按市值计价 mature v.到期 wobble v.摇晃

Regulators must therefore use the year ahead to make the system safer. One step is to remove many of the odd exemptions that apply to mid-sized banks, some of which were the result ofpost-crisis rules being rolled back amid much lobbying in 2018 and 2019. Bankers will hate theidea of yet more capital buffers and rulemaking. But the gains from safety are vast. Depositors and taxpayers from Silicon Valley to Switzerland are facing a mighty scare. They should not have to live with the fear and fragility they thought had been consigned to history years ago.

监管机构因此必须利用未来一年的时间，使系统更加安全。一个步骤是取消适用于中型银行的许多奇怪的豁免，其中一些（豁免）是（金融）危机后的规则在2018年和2019年的大量游说中被削弱的结果。银行家们会讨厌更多的资本缓冲和规则制定的想法。但安全性的收益是巨大的。从硅谷到瑞士的存款人和纳税人正面临着一场巨大的恐慌。他们不应该生活在他们认为多年前已被载入历史的恐惧和脆弱之中。

roll back 削弱，倒退 lobby v.游说 buffer n.缓冲，减震 mighty adj.巨大的 consign v.交付，托付