The recent banking crisis has brought into question the business model used by most large banks. This collection of essays explores the success of ‘alternative banks’ – savings banks, cooperative banks and development banks, using case studies from around the world and discussion of both the historical and theoretical context of banking practices.

Banks of all sorts are troubled institutions. The cost of public bail-outs associated with the subprime crisis in the United States alone may be as high as US$5 trillion. What is the problem with banks? Why do they seem to be at the centre of economic and financial turmoil down through the ages? In this provocative and timely book, Rethel and Sinclair seek answers to these questions, arguing that banks suffer from perennial problems, and that developments in the financial markets and government in recent decades have simply exacerbated these issues. The book examines banking activity in America, Asia and Europe, and how specific historical circumstances have transformed banks' behaviour and attitude to risk. While many see government as a constraint on banks, Sinclair and Rethel argue that what governments do in terms of regulation shapes banks and their motivations, as can be seen in the shortcomings of current reform proposals. Instead, more far-reaching, alternative ways of regulating and shaping banks are needed. A concise, essential overview of a pressing global issue.

For over 2,000 years, banks have served to facilitate the exchange of money and to provide a variety of economic and financial services. During the most recent financial collapse and subsequent recession, beginning in 2008, banks have been vilified as perpetrators of the crisis, the public distrust compounded by massive public bailouts. Nevertheless, another form of banking has also emerged, with a focus on promoting economic sustainability, investing in community, providing opportunity for the disadvantaged, and supporting social, environmental, and ethical agendas. Social Banking and Social Finance traces the emergence of the “bank with a conscience” and proposes a new approach to banking in the wake of the economic crisis. Featuring innovations and initiatives in banking from Europe, Canada, and the United States, Roland Benedikter presents an alternative to traditional banking practices that are focused exclusively on profit maximization. He argues that social banking is not about changing the system, but about improving some of its core features by putting into use the "triple bottom line" principle of profit-people-planet. Important lessons can be learned by the success of social banks that may be useful for the greater task of improving the global financial system and avoiding economic crises in the future.

In contrast to non-financial firms, banks have undergone significant turbulence in the past decade, enduring severe financial crises and unprecedented regulatory reforms. New regulations, including heightened capital and liquidity requirements, measures to address regulatory migration, resolution authority, stress testing, and capital planning, have spurred the development of new tools to manage institutional failure. The primary goal has been to reduce the likelihood of poor performance and improve stock market valuations to restore public confidence in the industry. The banking industry plays a vital role in global economic and financial stability and is subject to intense regulatory and market scrutiny. Financial instability can be very costly for banks due to its spillover effects on other parts of the economy. Therefore, a sound, stable, and healthy financial system is essential for efficient resource allocation and risk distribution across the economy.This is the first book that comprehensively addresses a range of contemporary issues in the global banking industry, providing a thorough understanding of the challenges and opportunities faced by the sector. The book examines how banking business models, effective policies, and regulations can address these issues, covering corporate governance, asset-liability management, risk management, financial performance, and regulatory frameworks. The potential benefits of alternative banking models, including Islamic banking, and their contribution to global financial stability and resilience are also explored.Contributions from international scholars using both quantitative and qualitative methods provide new insights, recent findings, and perspectives on future bank stability and resilience in a global context. The book also presents updated evidence and debates on the impact of recent regulations and governance structures on the industry, which has undergone significant changes in response to financial turmoil and new laws and regulations aimed at enhancing bank resiliency, protecting against systematic risks, and promoting fair and ethical banking practices.

This book features contributions from leading researchers into the effect of the recent financial crisis on lending in the banking sector. They explore the emergence of alternative methods of firm financing, including crowdfunding, firm network financing and venture capital, and analyse the performance of listed European innovative firms. The book discusses related topics such as the role of loan dynamics and structure for Central and Eastern European economic growth, the liquidity policy of the European Central Bank during the Euro crisis, sovereign pensions and social security reserve funds. Lending, Investments and the Financial Crisis addresses the ways in which the strategies of institutional investors have been impacted by the crisis. The study focuses on Western, Central and Eastern Europe, while providing a wider context in terms of comparison with the Chinese banking system.

We collect new data to assess the importance of supply-side credit market frictions by studying the impact of financial sector recapitalization packages on the growth performance of firms in a large cross-section of 50 countries during the recent crisis. We develop an identification strategy that uses the financial crisis as a shock to credit supply and exploits exogenous variation in the degree to which firms depend on external financing for investment needs, and focus on policy interventions aimed at alleviating the bank capital crunch. We find that the growth of firms dependent on external financing is disproportionately positively affected by bank recapitalization policies, and that this effect is quantitatively important and robust to controlling for other financial sector support policies. We also find that fiscal policy disproportionately boosted growth of firms more dependent on external financing. These results provide new evidence of a quantitatively important role of credit market frictions in influencing real economic activity.

"The goals of financial restructuring are to reestablish the creditor-debtor relationships on which the economy depends for an efficient allocation of capital, and to accomplish that objective at minimal cost. Costs include direct costs to taxpayers of financial assistance and the indirect costs to the economy that result from misallocations of capital and incentive problems resulting from the restructuring. Calomiris, Klingebiel, and Laeven review cases in which countries used alternative mechanisms to restructure their financial and corporate sectors. Countries typically apply a combination of tools, including decentralized, market-based mechanisms, and government-managed programs. Market-based strategies seek to strengthen the capital base of financial institutions and borrowers to enable them to renegotiate debt and resume new credit supply. Government-led restructuring strategies often include the establishment of an entity to which nonperforming loans are transferred or the government's sale of financial institutions, sometimes to foreign entrants. Market-based mechanisms can, in principle, resolve coordination problems that countries face in the wake of massive debtor and creditor insolvency, with acceptably low direct and indirect costs, particularly when those mechanisms are effective in achieving the desirable objective of selectivity. However, these mechanisms depend for their success on an efficient judicial system, a credible supervisory framework and authority with sufficient enforcement capacity, and a lack of corruption in implementation. Government-managed programs may not seem to depend as much on efficient legal and supervisory institutions for their success, but in fact these approaches, in particular the transfer of assets to government-owned asset management companies, also depend on effective legal, regulatory, and political institutions for their success. Further, a lack of attention to incentive problems when designing specific rules governing financial assistance can aggravate moral hazard problems, unnecessarily raising the costs of resolution. These results suggest that policymakers in emerging market economies with weak institutions should not expect to achieve the same level of success in financial restructuring as other countries, and that they should design resolution mechanisms accordingly. Despite the theoretical attraction of some complex market-based mechanisms, simpler mechanisms that afford quick resolution of outstanding debts that improve financial system competitiveness, and that offer little discretion to governments, are most effective. This paper--a product of the Financial Sector and Operations Policy Department--is part of a larger effort in the department to study the containment and resolution of financial crises"--World Bank web site.