The results are startling.

Not a single bank met the OCC's requirements for internal auditing, risk management or succession planning. Barbara A. Rehm, American Banker

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Why no criminal charges? Why instead only some remedial measures and a “historical” fine that can be measured in weeks — not years — of earnings? It certainly wasn’t for lack of evidence. No, instead the government determined that HSBC is not only too big to fail, but also too big to jail.

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In some aspects, DOJ’s surrender is understandable. Notwithstanding regulatory reform efforts in the U.S. and the UK, the largest banks are in many ways even more systemically dangerous today than when we bailed them out in 2008. This indirect acknowledgment that we have failed to fix the too-big-to-fail problem has potentially dire consequences.

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• Just break them up! - Authored by: Wol on Friday, December 14 2012 @ 06:06 PM EST

In Bailey’s universe [Andrew Bailey, chief executive-designate of the Prudential Regulatory Authority] protecting a bit of money is more important than the rule of law?

Large banks and their senior executives must have an immunity from criminal prosecution — i.e. carte blanche to do whatever they want, including plundering the real economies, forming price-fixing cartels, rigging rates and markets, ransacking communities and funding terrorism, irrespective of the harm caused to others — for fear of upsetting financial stability?

I am afraid this won’t wash.

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