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美联储“非常担心”欧洲银行的融资问题
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2011年08月18日 14:38
文 / 陈浩
（英文原文非常重要，我们放在了文章下方）
昨天欧洲央行披露的数据：一家银行上周从欧洲央行借走5亿美元紧急贷款。显示欧洲央行的美元融资问题可能有问题。
由于担心欧洲债务危机会侵蚀美国银行系统，美国联邦及各州金融监管者开始加强对欧洲大型银行在美国分支机构的监控。
知情人士向《华尔街日报》透露，负责监督这些欧洲大型银行美国分支机构的纽约联邦储备银行最近与银行高管进行大量的“谈话”，以便准确测量他们在不断增加的金融压力下的抵抗力。他们要求这些银行的美国分支机构提供更多的信息，来验证他们是否每天都能得到足够的基金支持。
一家欧洲银行的高管也证实了此消息，纽约储备银行“非常担心”欧洲大型银行在美分支机构的融资问题。
很多欧洲银行在美国都有分支机构，比如法国的兴业银行，德国的德意志银行和意大利裕信银行。他们都需要借用资金来维持正常运营。目前，监管机构还没有特别关注某家具体银行的状况。
在美国的外国银行可以寻找多种方式来支持美国的分支网络。他们可以从货币市场基金、央行或者其他商业银行融资，或者在外汇市场将本国货币（比如欧元）兑换成美元。问题是大多数选择都可能导致危机。
最近，这方面还没有出现问题。部分因为美联储的QE计划，大量美元被输入全球金融体系，其中也包括这些国际性的银行。
这是一篇非常重要的文章，我们将英文附在下面：
Fed Eyes European Banks
Regulators Scrutinize Ability of Institutions' U.S. Units to Fund Themselves
Federal and state regulators, signaling their growing worry that Europe's debt crisis could spill into the U.S. banking system, are
intensifying their scrutiny of the U.S. arms of Europe's biggest banks, according to people familiar with the matter.
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which oversees the U.S. operations of many large European banks, recently has been holding
extensive meetings with the lenders to gauge their vulnerability to escalating financial pressures. The Fed is demanding more information
from the banks about whether they have reliable access to the funds needed to operate on a day-to-day basis in the U.S. and, in some
cases, pushing the banks to overhaul their U.S. structures, the people familiar with the matter say.
Officials at the New York Fed "are very concerned" about European banks facing funding difficulties in the U.S., said a senior executive at
a major European bank who has participated in the talks.
Regulators are seeking to avoid a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis, when the global financial system began to seize up. This time the
worry is that the euro-zone debt crisis could eventually hinder the ability of European banks to fund loans and meet other financial
obligations in the U.S. While signs of stress are bubbling up, the problems aren't yet approaching the severity of past crises.
Some of Europe's biggest banks—including France's Société Générale SA, Germany's Deutsche Bank AG and Italy's UniCredit
SpA—have major operations in the U.S. and rely heavily on borrowed funds to finance those operations. There is no indication that
regulators are focused in particular on those banks.
Foreign banks that lack extensive U.S. branch networks have a handful of ways to bankroll U.S. operations. They can borrow dollars from
money-market funds, central banks or other commercial banks. Or they can swap their home currencies, such as euros, for dollars in the
foreign-exchange market. The problem is, most of those options can vanish in a crisis.
Until recently, that hasn't been a problem. Thanks partly to the Federal Reserve's so-called quantitative-easing program, huge amounts of
dollars have been sloshing around the financial system, and much of it has landed at international banks, according to weekly Fed reports
on bank balance sheets. （编著注：QE3？）
Fed officials recently have held meetings with U.S.-based executives from top European banks to discuss their funding positions,
according to the people familiar with the matter. Officials also are in contact with regulators in the countries where the European banks are
headquartered.
The New York Fed has also been coordinating with New York's superintendent of financial services, Benjamin M. Lawsky, to monitor the
foreign banks' funding positions, said people familiar with the matter. The state regulator supervises the New York outposts of many major
European banks, and it has the power to force them to keep more money on hand in the U.S. Mr. Lawsky's office has been getting
near-daily updates from examiners embedded in European banks' New York offices about their funding positions.
Regulators are trying to guard against the possibility European banks that encounter trouble could siphon funds out of their U.S. arms,
these people said. Regulators recently have ramped up pressure on European banks to transform their U.S. businesses into self-financed
organizations that are better insulated from problems with their parent companies, a senior bank executive said.
In one sign of how European banks may be having trouble getting dollar funding, an unidentified European bank on Wednesday borrowed
$500 million in one-week debt from the European Central Bank, according to ECB data. The bank paid a higher cost than what other
banks would pay to borrow dollars from fellow lenders. It was the first time for that type of borrowing since Feb 23.
Anxiety about European banks' U.S. funding comes amid broader concerns about whether Europe's struggling banks will be able to
refinance maturing debt in coming years. Investors, wary of many European banks' holdings of debt issued by troubled euro-zone
governments, are shunning large swaths of the sector. While top European banks already have satisfied about 90% of their funding needs
for 2011, they still need to raise a total of roughly €80 billion ($115 billion) by the end of the year, according to Morgan Stanley.
Part of what is unsettling regulators and bankers is the speed at which funding can reverse direction. This spring, foreign banks were able
to build up ample cash cushions, thanks largely to quantitative easing—the Fed's $600 billion bond-buying program, which brought more
money into the banking system in the U.S., including foreign banks' coffers.
In July 2010, non-U.S. banks had $418.7 billion on reserve and collecting interest at the Fed, according to Fed data. By July 13 of this
year, the total had more than doubled, to about $900 billion. Some major European banks were among the main drivers of this trend,
according to their U.S. regulatory filings.
On June 30, 2010, for example, Société Générale had $55 million in cash reserves in its main New York branch. A year later, that amount
had soared to $24.6 billion. At Deutsche Bank, cash reserves at its U.S. arm rose to $66.8 billion from $178 million.
Spokesmen for Société Générale and Deutsche Bank declined to comment on the reasons for the funding buildup or whether there has
been a pullback.
In recent weeks, though, the cash piles at foreign banks' U.S. arms have diminished. While individual banks haven't reported data after
June 30, foreign banks' overall U.S. cash reserves fell to $758 billion as of Aug. 3, the latest data available. That is down 16% from three
weeks earlier, though it's still up sharply from the beginning of the year.
The latest Fed data "could be telltale signs that foreign banks are in need [of dollars] again, or institutional investors are getting
concerned about foreign bank credit," said George Goncalves, a rates strategist for Nomura Securities.
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