No products in the cart.
Coming Soon: Barclays Branches in the US
Buried in an article about how HSBC is building its US branch network at the pace of an 100-year-old turtle was the disclosure that Barclays PLC is actively looking to expand its branch presence in America.
To me, the Barclays development is striking. Here is a bank that was “TARP-ed” by the British government, that acquired a part of ABN Amro at the worst moment of the credit cycle, expanding into arguably the most competitive banking market in the world. In no small measure because it heisted Lehman Brothers’s assets after that investment bank’s collapse, Barclays has a healthy Wall Street business today. But Main Street banking is much different than Wall Street financing on this side of the Atlantic Ocean.
The underlying story here is, of course, the resurgence of the world’s largest banks. Even HSBC, arguably the bank with the most idiotic, subprime-lending-centric strategy is on the expansion trail. By all rights, HSBC should have been sunk by its subprime excursion.
And this is why Ben Bernanke’s broadside last weekend of the too-big-to-fail banks was nothing more than a meow. Is he going to allow Barclays, HSBC, Deutsche Bank, and other massive non-US banks to gain an advantage over the US banking system? I say “no,” regardless of the text of his speech on Saturday. TBTF banks will remain too big, regardless of the rhetoric.
Please login to join discussion
