A report of the recent performance of a banking sector in a country of Essay

A report of the recent performance of a banking sector in a country of your choice - Essay Example In the case of the British banking industry, the repeated failures of banks to meet the market rules led to severe losses, a fact which has traumatized the British economy, which is still in a period of recovery. The recent performance of banking industry in Britain is examined in this paper. It is revealed that banks across the country have managed to stabilize their performance, even if the relevant process has not, yet, ended. Another important finding of the research developed for this paper has been the following one: banks which have been well established in the British market have been able to face more effectively the pressures caused because of the crisis of 2007-2009. Also, the support of the state to the banks has been of critical importance for the recovery of the British banking sector, even if efforts are still required for the performance of banks in Britain to be stabilized. It should be noted that the paper is highly based on the material published in governmental an d non-governmental organizations. Also, recent articles from newspapers across Britain – worldwide also – have been used in order to show the current performance of banks in the particular country – aiming to reflect the current conditions of the country’s banking sector. 2. ... England can control the stability of the country’s financial system, the FSA has certain powers, as described in the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 while the HM Treasury can overview the performance of relevant legal rules and report their violation, if such activity is identified, to the Parliament (Bank of England 2011). Traditionally, the role of banks in the British economy has been quite important. In fact, banks in UK have been considered as ‘the most respectable organizations’ (UK Banks 2011); however, this was a view related to the pre-2007, i.e. before the development of the crisis. Since the appearance of the global financial crisis, in 2007, the performance of British banks has started to be reduced – this trend is continued, even more slowly, up today. An indicative example of the effects of the crisis on the performance of the British banks has been the following one: because of the crisis the profits of Halifax Bank were reduced by 72 %, while in Lloyds-TSB, the reduction of profits reached a level of 70% (UK banks 2011). The British bank less affected by the crisis was HSBC with a limitation of profitability of approximately 28% (UK banks 2000). The effects of the crisis on British banks were controlled through the intervention of the British government (in October 2008) who offered ‘an amount of ? 500 billion’ (UK banks 2011) for helping British banks to exit the crisis with the less possible losses. In January of 2009 the British government offered an additional amount of ? 50 billion’ (UK banks 2011) to support the country’s banking sector. The reference to the above facts is necessary in order to evaluate the current performance of British banks, as explained in the next section. 2.2. Recent performance of banks in the British