THE LURE OF LEVERAGING:

The Case for Prudential Regulation of Banking

By Rep. Jim Leach

ON THE SURFACE, the U.S. economy appears to be humming along, but below the thin crust of prosperity, there is a pernicious disease eating away at the economic fabric of our society.

Symbolized by the thrift crisis in the United States and the developing country debt crisis, the over-leveraging of other people's money by high-flying financial institutions is the single greatest financial scandal in the United States today. Politicians and regulators are complicitous. By comparison, the more celebrated conflicts of interest of Ed Meese and Casper Weinberger's defense contractors pale in significance.

Simply put, weak laws have led to weak regulations which have led to sloppy banking practices. The end result is that taxpayers are on the line for billions of dollars of obligations made outside the framework of normal congressional budgeting decisions.

Two recent announcements tell the story.

The General Accounting Office (GAO) reported to Congress that America's money center banks are undercapitalized and underregulated and have failed to write down approximately $28 billion in uncollectible foreign loans. In an "audit of the auditors," the GAO faults federal regulators, including the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation for developing a lenient classification system for developing country debt.

Using today's secondary market as a guidepost, the GAO calculates that the average developing country loan is worth 54 percent of its stated value. At year-end 1987, American banks had reserved $21.1 billion of foreign loans, when, in the GAO's estimation, a more realistic regulation would have required a $49 billion write-down.

In spite of Treasury Secretary James Baker's exhortation, in the plan that bears his name, that lending levels be held constant, U.S. bank loans to developing countries decreased from $139.7 billion in June 1982 to $107.6 billion in December 1987. U.S. bank capital, meanwhile, increased from $66.2 billion in June 1982 to $129.2 billion in December 1987. As a result, from June 1982 to December 1987 bank loans owed by developing countries decreased from 211 percent of bank capital to 83 percent. During this time developing country loans owed to the nine largest money center banks decreased from 323 percent of these banks' capital to 139 percent.

While these figures reflect a prudential improvement in circumstances for American banks, developing country loans are still substantial compared with bank capital and are disproportionately concentrated in a small number of money center institutions.

From the perspective of U.S. commercial banks, the international debt situation has improved markedly in the past five years. This improvement, however, has occurred during a period in which a bloated dollar assisted foreign borrowers, and hence U.S. money center banks, by encouraging Americans to import rather than export. Banks and regulators need to prepare for economic circumstances in which a weaker dollar makes American producers and manufacturers more competitive and in which a recession might need to be accommodated.

Defending itself from the criticism the GAO levied, the Federal Reserve Board committed regulatory hara-kiri. In a formal response to Congress, it opened the barn door to the speculative instincts of bankers with the incredulous assertion that individual "bank management is in the best position to determine the appropriate levels of reserves" that should be taken against developing country debt.

There is no nuttier cop-out of regulatory accountability than to give the regulated the definitional power to regulate themselves.

The developing country debt dilemma has precipitated a dual standard of regulation in American banking. When regulators come into a bank in a rural state like Iowa and find that neither interest nor principal is being paid on a farm loan, that bank is required to write down the loan. However, when a developing country loan becomes impaired, regulators are not only reticent in requiring adequate reserves, but appear unwilling to accept their responsibility, under law, to set responsible reserve levels.

Ironically, the biggest banks in America today are generally the weakest and the smallest, the strongest. This phenomenon is in no small part due to the fact that smaller banks are more responsibly regulated.

Because of the too-big-to-fail syndrome that has been embraced with so much alacrity by politicians and regulators in recent years, taxpayers face enormous liabilities unless policymakers make it clear that no institution is too big to regulate. The only way to avoid the prospect of public bail-outs of large financial institutions is for regulators to blow the whistle and require a greater infusion of private sector capital to bolster capital-to-asset ratios.

On the brighter side, there is some good news and some light at the end of the tunnel for commercial banking. While the international debt issue is becoming increasingly intractable, its ramifications for U.S. banks are increasingly manageable. Not only does the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation fund hold significant reserves (approximately $17 billion), but most developing country liabilities have been transferred to others. Foreign banks, various governments and international financial institutions now hold nine times more developing country debt than American commercial banks. By comparison, the American thrift industry, with its weak insurance fund and large number of insolvent, money-losing institutions, appears by a quantum magnitude to be more jeopardized than American commercial banking.

In the thrift industry the trend is worse because regulation is weaker than even that applied to money center banks. According to the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, the thrift industry lost $3.8 billion in the first quarter of 1988. This quarterly deficit means the industry is losing money at a $15 billion annual clip. The weak are getting weaker, with Congress facing the prospect of a multibillion dollar industry bail-out.

Commentators like to suggest that regional problems--.e., a weak economy in the oil patch and on the farm--precipitated the savings and loan problem. Actually, the culprits are more human than such abstract rationales. The root cause of the thrift problem is greed, the regulator-sanctioned capacity of high flyers to attract and overleverage other people's money, all backed by federal insurance.

The quid pro quo--prudential investment and lending practices-- has been ignored by a significant element of the thrift industry because regulators followed the pandering exhortations of legislators who themselves too often developed conflicts of interest, receiving campaign and other contributions from the thrift industry.

In California, the thrift deposit base now exceeds that of the banking industry even though the capital base of many California savings and loans is negligible. Weak regulations stimulated excessive competitive leverage. If an individual or group, for instance, can put together around $10 million today, it is possible to obtain a bank charter in California with regulators allowing $150 million in deposits. With the same $10 million, a savings and loan can be chartered and allowed $2 billion in deposits--with the taxpayer potentially on the line if imprudent loans or spending practices develop.

Another classic example of egregious thrift power is the regulatory rule that allows savings and loans, but not banks, to put 300 percent of their capital in direct investments. Alleged representatives of the average depositor have encouraged thrift investors to use govemment-insured deposits to speculate in real estate or the stock market rather than home loans.

The quandary now confronting regulators is how to rein in overextended institutions when their primary resource is an over-extended insurance fund. The short-term answer appears to be a government-backed Ponzi scheme: the issuance of long-term capital notes on a fund with no capital. Incredulously, the long-term effects of such note issuances is the prospect of taxpayer liability for the printing press of an independent regulatory agency. But no one in the executive branch is willing to bite the bullet just now. Apparently afraid of offending powerful interest groups, the Reagan administration hopes to leave town before runs on the savings and loans commence.

The only way it can do this is to give license to the licentious. Even though well capitalized and well managed thrift institutions have had record profits in recent years, the "Dr. Jekyll" third of the industry is so poorly managed that losses not only exceed the deposit insurance fund for thrifts but for banks as well. These losses are almost certain to multiply unless regulators learn to just say "no." Otherwise, a $50 billion headache today might become a $100 billion migraine tomorrow.

The best way to avoid public bail-outs is a simple requirement that financial institutions be adequately capitalized. With a little luck, the greatest private sector banking mistake since the '30s--the decade-long spurt of questionable developing country lending--will not destroy the basic fabric of American banking. Time is healing. The problem is that while a strategy of putting problems off in commercial banking may in part have worked, the same approach for the thrift industry is unrealistic.

The advantage money center banks had and have over thrifts is four-fold: (a) a substantially stronger capital base; (b) tougher regulations coupled with more honest accounting; (c) less dishonesty and personal conflicts of interest; and (d) ready access to the Federal Reserve discount window. Despite one bit of accounting gimmickry--the allowance of banks to consider a portion of their loan loss reserves as capital for regulatory purposes--it is apparent that Citicorp and Chase are more likely to survive into the 21st century than many thrifts.

Compounding the problem of weak regulation and a weak capital base in the thrift industry is the epidemic of greed that seems to exist in a number of over-extended institutions in growth states. Thrift managers who are in a negative net worth situation know that they have nothing to lose as they pay premiums to attract deposits insured by others. Hence, there is every incentive--through dividends, salaries and perks--to live high on the hog today and make high risk investments in the hope of striking gold tomorrow. Without stern regulatory oversight, imprudent circumstances are likely to breed more imprudent decisions.

If thrift industry extravagances continue to be countenanced, the country and the financial community have to be prepared for the greatest jolt in public confidence since the depression. An increase in interest rates prompted either by Congress' inability to constrain the deficit or an easing of Federal Reserve monetary policy could all too easily spark a decline in thrift industry spreads and assets. A cascade of thrift failures could have an avalanche effect on the economy, leading to recession or, quite possibly, depression.

The time could not be more propitious for Congress to come to grips with the pressure group syndrome that precipitated the over-leveraging in the first place. Despite the implications of interference with a free market, there is no substitute for prudent laws and regulation of financial institutions when the economy as a whole can be so dramatically affected by the decisions of a few.

Jim Leach is a Republican from Iowa's First Congressional District. Rep. Leach is the ranking minority member of the subcommittee on International Finance, Trade and Monetary Policy of the House Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs. He also serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.