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Unhappy U.S. bankers would just move

Nancy Marshall-Genzer Mar 4, 2010
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Unhappy U.S. bankers would just move

Nancy Marshall-Genzer Mar 4, 2010
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TEXT OF STORY

Bill Radke: President Obama has put forward legislation designed to rein in those banks that were too big to fail. It would ban them from making risky trades, among other things. Marketplace’s Nancy Marshall Genzer has our story.


Nancy Marshall Genzer: Under the White House proposal, banks wouldn’t be able to make investments in hedge funds or private equity funds on their own behalf. That’s called proprietary trading. The administration says it can cause a conflict of interest that would hurt the bank’s customers.

Banks don’t like the idea at all. Some are threatening to move to other countries that don’t restrict trading.

Andrew Hilton director of the Center for the Study of Financial Innovation in London. He says London became an international financial center when American banks moved there to avoid a tax 30 years ago.

Andrew Hilton: And London grew up as the center of what we came to call the euro markets, and is now I suppose the leader of, as far as international finance goes, even ahead of New York.

Hilton says a top British financial official is even touting the U.K. as a more friendly place for banks, than the U.S. But Hilton says the political climate in Britain in similar to the feeling in the U.S. where banks are blamed for causing the financial crisis. He says, eventually, Britain might propose restrictions similar to what President Obama wants.

In Washington, I’m Nancy Marshall Genzer for Marketplace.

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