KPMG International Handbook of Financial Instruments and Transactions [antikvár]

Foreword 'Revolution is an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment. . . usually accompanied by an effusion of blood, this cost being accounted worth it by those whose blood had not the mischance to be shed.' (Devil's Dictionary) Financial sector events leading up to the 1980s The financial sector has seen periods of considerable change in the past. The early 1930s was a period of great legislative and regulatory change for financial institutions, particularly in the US. The McFadden Act 1927 and the Glass Steagall Act 1933 were products of that significant period in banking history. The McFadden Act had the effect of restricting operations of American banks to their home state. This piece of legislation is still in existence, as is the better known Glass Steagall Act which was put forward by Senator Carter Glass and Representative Henry Steagall in response to alleged abuses by banks during the era leading up to the Great Crash of 1929. The Act prohibits 'commercial banks', such as Citibank and Bank of America, from undertaking any underwriting or dealing in securities. In effect, the securities business being left as the preserve of investment banks like Merrill Lynch and Salomon Brothers. At the same time the US government created the Securities and Exchange Commission ('SEC'), a tough statutory body to regulate the American securities markets. The period following the Second World War was one of economic reform and resulted in changes in the financial system that had consequences more far reaching than its proponents could ever have imagined. The Bretton Woods Conference in July 1944 followed a period which included the failure of Credit Anstalt, a large bank in Austria, the abandonment of the gold standard by all major countries, and restrictions on international trade and foreign exchange reflecting a virtual breakdown in international financial markets. It was therefore on the major political and financial powers after World War II, the UK and US, to take it upon themselves to restore the functioning of the international financial mechanism and it was against this backdrop that the conference at Bretton Woods was held. The outcome of the conference was the creation of the International Monetary Fund ('IMF') within an international monetary system with the principal objective of providing greater stability to exchange rates by implementing fixed rates. In the period from Bretton Woods to 1967 the system was put under continuing pressure, in the latter stages largely due to the