Banks play a central role in the functioning of the economy. Not only do they allocate financial resources, they also collectively create money in the process of granting loans. In this way, they have a considerable impact on the type of activities that are financed in society. During the financial crisis, it became clear that the banking sector at large was not sufficiently stable and customer-focused. Since then, banks and regulators alike have been busy reviewing bank business models, and several committees have been installed to investigate the desired scale and scope of banking activities. This is the backdrop against which the joint SUERF/DNB/Rabobank conference was organized. The conference, hosted by the Duisenberg School of Finance, attracted over one hundred registered participants from ten different European countries. The conference started off with the 2013 SUERF Annual Lecture delivered by Lex Hoogduin and ended after a keynote address by Aerdt Houben, and a panel session. In addition, six invited speakers presented their work in two themed sessions, providing the audience with views from academia, central banks, and commercial banks. A selection of papers based on the authors” contributions has been published in SUERF Study 2014/2.
The video of the 2013 SUERF Annual Lecture delivered by Lex Hoogduin is online at the speaker”s website
http://lexhoogduin.com/episodes/suerf-the-value-of-banks-and-their-business-models-to-society
