Bank Checkup Also Tests Regulators

在医学上，压力测试是指医生让你在踏车上运动，以检查你的心脏功能。如果病人明显有心脏病，是不会让他再做测试的，否则可能会让他丧命。在金融领域，压力测试是管理层使用的一种正式途径，用以模拟“假设”会出现的情况；如果测试结果显示一家公司的实力不足以承受最糟糕的情况，那么别指望公司CEO会宣布这个结果。如今，财政部美国联邦储备委员会(Federal Reserve)和其他银行监管机构对全美大银行正在进行的压力测试可不是给病人体检那么简单。它将考验政府重振市场对银行业信心克服仍在威胁美国经济的金融危机的能力。今年2月，当财政部长盖特纳(Timothy Geithner)推出测试计划的时候，他可没想到这一点。他当时的想法是：让银行业的监管者和管理曾设想一下比当时的普通预测人士认为的更为严重的衰退，对2009年和2010年可能发生的损失做个估计，并确定银行是否有足够的资金应付这些损失。如果不够，银行将设法筹措资金，如果私人资金没指望，就考虑借纳税人的资金。为让大家在银行凑集到资金之前保持镇定，联邦存款担保公司(Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.)将对银行的借款提供担保。这个过程结束时，每个人都会相信，每家尚存的银行都强大到足以抵御恶劣风暴的袭击。这就像是罗斯福总统(Franklin D. Roosevelt)  1933年搞的那次“银行假期”。当时，他下令所有银行歇业，并让大家相信，那些重新营业的银行都是安全的。但是，有些事情出了岔子。其一，经济前景在恶化，监管机构二月初设想的糟糕情形是，美国经济到2009年秋天开始增长，失业率将在2010年底触及10.4%左右的峰值。当时这种情形看起来不太可能发生，但是现在已经不像那时候那样不可能了。因此，测试看上去不够严苛。其次，部分银行接受了财政部预计之外的政府资助，国会对这些银行高管薪酬发放实施了限制。这给得到政府资金的银行家在经营业务上增加了难度，让那些没有接受纳税人资金的银行在招纳人才方面获得了优势。因此，没有银行家愿意接受政府的钱。第三，压力测试引起的关注制造了超出财政部预料的不确定性和混乱，引发了对银行持续的误解，削弱了人们对银行业的信心，这恰恰违背了测试的初衷。一些批评人士称，测试本身是个好主意，但宣布这个计划──特别是测试结果要到5月初才公布──是个错误。但财政部官员怀疑秘密进行的压力测试能在很长时期仍保持秘密状态。围绕压力测试有几种错误观念。一是认为政府希望银行有足够资本承受萧条。其实不然。没有哪家银行对此有足够的资本。如果萧条来临，政府将拥有银行。另外一点是认为监管机构为了检查而改变规定。实际上，监管机构没这么做。银行仍应以市价衡量交易帐户的证券价格；它们仍不应按今天可能卖出的价格来衡量贷款的价值，而是按它们合理预计的价格。然后还有“测试”这个词，它意味着要么通过，要么通不过。这也不是财政部的本意，但现在它脱不开这个看法。因此，财政部陷入一种两难处境：要么它说所有银行都“通过”，引得人们哄笑；要么它会说（不管它如何小心措辞）某些银行“没通过”，也就是说，它们如果自己不能筹集到资金，将被迫接受政府资金。一旦上了这个“没通过”名单，银行的股票将受到打压，增加它们筹资私人资本的难度，而筹资私人资本是财政部希望鼓励的做法。财政部应该按事情的本来面目来对待它，而不是从它的愿望出发。也就是说，它应该公开用以衡量各类资产可能损失的具体标准。那样的话，虽然监管机构仍会被贴上“盲目乐观”的标签，但至少批评人士不用再去猜测他们的假设条件是什么了。困难的部分是，如果银行需要筹资的话，应该如何公布监管机构要求各家银行筹集的资金规模。对此保持沉默是行不通的。实力强的银行会大事宣扬并且主动提出归还政府对它的投资。通过排除法，那些被认为缺乏资本的银行的身份将一目了然。相关披露规定可能会迫使CEO们公布监管机构的底牌。不过，如果各家银行描述的结论不一致，势必将出现混乱。因此，当5月初测试完成的时候，政府将不得不逐个公布银行相关信息，或设计一个每家银行用来披露信息的通用模板，除此之外别无选择。且把它称为“星巴克方式”吧。每家银行至少都是有实力的，也就是说它已经拥有或将得到足够资金来度过衰退。只不过有些银行会得到更多资金，还有些甚至会比这得到的更多。David Wessel相关阅读原声视频：分析银行压力测试 2009-04-16白宫考虑公布银行业压力测试结果 2009-04-15


In medicine, a stress test is when the doctor puts you on a treadmill to check your heart. It's not used on patients who are clearly having a heart attack; it probably would kill them. In finance, a stress test used to be a formal way for management to run 'what if' scenarios; no CEO was expected to announce if a test revealed the company wasn't strong enough to withstand the worst-case scenario.Today, the stress test the Treasury, Federal Reserve and other bank regulators are conducting at the nation's largest banks is more than a test of the patients' health. It is a test of the government's ability to restore confidence in the banks and conquer the financial crisis that continues to threaten the U.S. economy.This wasn't what Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner had in mind when he unveiled the stress tests in February. The idea then was for bank supervisors and managers to imagine a deeper recession than the typical forecaster expected at the time, gauge the losses that would cause in 2009 and 2010, and determine whether the bank had enough capital to absorb those losses. If not, the bank would raise capital, either privately or, if that didn't work, from taxpayers. To keep everyone calm until banks could raise more capital, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. would guarantee bank borrowing.At the end of the process, everyone would believe that each remaining bank was strong enough to withstand a bad storm. It was akin to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1933 bank holiday, in which he closed all the banks and convinced everyone that those that reopened were safe.A few things have gone awry.One, the economic outlook worsened. The dire scenario regulators devised in early February -- an economy that is growing by the fall of 2009 with an unemployment rate that peaks around 10.4% at the end of 2010 -- doesn't look as unlikely as they thought it did then. So the tests look less stringent.Two, Congress imposed limits on executive compensation paid by banks that take government capital that the Treasury didn't anticipate. That makes it harder for any banker who gets government capital to run the business, and gives banks that avoid taxpayer capital an advantage in hiring talent. So no banker wants the government money.Three, the attention the stress tests received created more uncertainty and confusion than the Treasury anticipated, sparking persistent misunderstanding and undermining confidence in the banks, the exact opposite of what was intended.Some critics say the test was a good idea, but announcing it -- particularly since results now won't be revealed until early May -- was a mistake. But Treasury officials doubt that a secret stress test would have remained a secret for long.Several misconceptions plague the stress tests. One is that the government wants banks to have enough capital to withstand a depression. It doesn't. No bank can have enough capital for that. If a depression arrives, the government will own the banks. Another is that regulators are changing the rules for this inspection. They aren't. Banks still are supposed to value securities in trading accounts at the market price; banks still are supposed to value loans not at the price at which they could be sold today, but based on what they reasonably expect to get paid.And then there's the word 'test,' which implies pass or fail. That wasn't the Treasury's intent, but it has been stuck with that perception. So the Treasury has a dilemma: Either it says everyone 'passed,' which will produce guffaws. Or it says, no matter how delicately it phrases it, that some banks 'failed' -- in that they will be forced to accept capital from the government if they can't raise it privately. Being on that list probably will depress those banks' shares, and make it harder for them to raise capital privately, which is what the Treasury hoped to encourage.The Treasury has to deal with the world as it is, not as it hoped it would be. That means being very open about the detailed criteria used to gauge likely losses for each asset class. Regulators still will be branded as Pollyanish, but at least the critics won't be guessing about the regulators' assumptions.The hard part will be how to reveal the amount of capital, if any, that regulators demand that each bank raise. Silence is not an option. Strong banks will boast and offer to return the capital the government already has invested. By a process of elimination, the identity of banks deemed capital-shy will be obvious. Disclosure laws likely will force CEOs to reveal regulators' bottom line. Yet if each bank describes the verdict differently, there will be confusion.So when the tests are done in early May, the government will have little choice but to disclose bank-by-bank information or devise a template that each bank will use in its disclosures. Call it the Starbucks approach. Every bank will be at least tall, meaning it has or will get enough capital to get through the deep recession. But some banks will be grande (more capital) and some vente (even more).David Wessel