Welcome to Day 3 of SmartBrief’s roundup of financial news coming out of the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland.
Blankfein on the reality of regulation: Goldman Sachs chairman and CEO Lloyd Blankfein told CNBC his firm is always thinking about regulation and how it affects things like technology acquisition. On whether banks are under regulatory assault, Blankfien responded, “No choice, no problem. I don’t have to sit here and ruminate on about whether its good or its bad or I like it or not. It is what it is.”
‘Pandemic bonds’ could be a panacea for next pandemic: Gillian Tett writes in the Financial Times writes about the concept of ‘pandemic bonds’ aimed at helping finance more effective and efficient responses to global health crises. The idea, which is backed by World Bank boss Jim Kim, would see bonds issued to help governments, NGOs and other organization,. “This could help cash-strapped governments finance measures to beat disease,” Tett writes. “But it would also have a potentially more important goal: it could inject private-sector rigour and market discipline into global medical bureaucracies.”
ECB’s bazooka could get bigger: Although markets we surprised by the size of the bazooka Mario Draghi fired yesterday, the European Central Bank may yet still have more artillery. “If we haven’t achieved what we want to achieve … then we will have to do more or we will have to do it longer,” ECB executive board member Benoit Corure told Bloomberg.
Wait … insurance news out of Davos that is actually being reported?: In an year when the press seems to want to hammer everything about Davos while covering very little of what is actually getting done in Davos, a bit of insurance news has escaped the Alps. From Bloomberg: “Eight big insurers, brokers, and reinsurers in Davos announced the creation of a group to support “micro” insurance, which is for people in the developing world who can’t or don’t get insurance through the regular market. This could be a big deal because poor countries are chronically uninsured. When disaster strikes, very little insurance money flows in afterward to help with the rebuilding. That explains why areas hit by floods and earthquakes still look like disaster zones years later.” You mean there are big corporations in Davos actually trying to help the developing world?