Asian foot-dragging leaves taxpayers on hook for bank bail-outs
Dec 9 (Reuters) – Asia’s financial regulators are dragging their feet on implementing measures to protect taxpayers from big bank failures, leaving governments on the hook for bail-outs and potentially forcing large global lenders to exit some markets.
After Lehman Brothers collapsed in 2008, G20 countries along with Hong Kong, Singapore and Switzerland, pledged to introduce new rules by the end of 2015 that would allow large financial firms to be wound down without triggering a market meltdown.
However, several Asian nations, including China, India and South Korea are making slow progress implementing these reforms, hampering efforts by banks to finalise plans about what they would do if they went bust, according to lawyers working on the issue.
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