Bankers Report Interbank Lending Shut For Two Hours Over German Bank Crisis
August 9, 2007 (LPAC)--A senior European banking source reports that the interbank money market closed down this morning for two to three hours, for the first time ever. Rumors had spread that the German Bundesbank was holding an emergency meeting because of a collapse of a major German bank, believed to be Westdeutsches Landesbank, one of the largest in Germany. The Bundesbank then released a statement saying that the meeting was to discuss the IKB banking crisis.
The source said that a Westdeutsches Landesbank failure would have collapsed the entire global financial system. The source underlined that this ongoing crisis is far worse then anything he has witnessed.
The next threat to the banking system in Germany, which will have obvious global ramifications, is what is called Asset Backed Commissioned Paper. Banks issue these to customers such as hedge funds and other banks, which, theoretically, can draw on them in case of emergency. The problem is that banks have been issuing far more then they should have. The deadline for the hedge funds and other customers to draw on these ABC-Ps is between August 13 and 15. If their customers rush to draw on them, this will be unsustainable for the banks.
The source said that these ABC-Ps were involved in the IKB bank crisis, because its Rhineland Funding unit had drawn on one of these, forcing IKB to cover it. Then IKB requested to draw on one of these ABC-Ps it had with Deutsche Bank, but the latter refused to honor it, and IKB collapsed.
Another senior banking source told EIR that he too had heard that the interbank money market had closed, and it had been closed under orders of the European Central Bank (ECB), so that the latter could funnel emergency credit to selected, troubled banks.
Meanwhile Bloomberg News reported that the ECB, in an "unprecedented" response to banks in desperate need of cash, loaned 94.8 billion euros to these banks. This followed a jump in overnight lending rates the banks charge each other, to the highest level in six years.
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