Niedrigzinsangst

29 October 2014Insurancecentral banks, deflation, government bonds, insurance, interest rate risk, Stress testsNick Dunbar

Why can't the ECB bring itself to stress test banks for deflation? I was thinking about this question when I remembered an episode from the past. Just over ten years ago, I took a train from Frankfurt to the sleepy spa town of Wiesbaden. It was the sort of place where a lone taxi is…

Insurer of last resort

22 December 2010Articlesfinancial innovation, insuranceNick Dunbar

I was searching for a note of irony in today's Financial Times article about how banks are trying to persuade insurers and pension funds to accept high-yield structured product collateral in return for providing long-term funding. First mooted in the latest Bank of England Financial Stability Review, the point is to wean banks off government…

More prudent than the Pru

21 May 2010ArticlesABN Amro, FSA, insurance, The PrudentialNick Dunbar

10 May 2010 It seems unfair to compare Prudential to the casualties of the recent banking crisis. The UK-based insurance group had a good credit crunch. It weathered the crisis well and emerged in a stronger position than its competitors, some of whom, like AIG, ended up as wards of the state. All the same,…