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Group Li Na

Current Global Financial Crisis and Its Implication on International Financial Institutions:

The Case of Asian Region

Abstract

The global financial crisis started since July, 2007 in United Stated of American and has

affected some of the Financial Institutions around the world, including in Asian Region. This

project is purely focuses on the current global financial crisis and its implication on international

financial institutions in the case of Asian region. The main purpose of the investigated is to

analysis and explains about why and how the global financial crisis impacts the International

Financial Institutions in Asian region. In this project, the explanation of the impact for Asian

region will be separated according to the directions with several Asian countries, there are East

Asian – China, Japan, North & South Korea, and Hong Kong; South Asian – India and Pakistan;

Western Asian – Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey; as well as Southeast Asia – Indonesia,

Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, and Singapore. First of all, the project will briefly discuss about

the financial system in Asian region before and after the Asian financial crisis in 1997, the

knowledge of the current global financial crisis, and international financial institutions in Asian

region. Then, the project will truly focus the reasons current global financial crisis implicated on

international financial institutions in Asian Region and identify the impact of current global

financial crisis for them. After that, the Asian Region’s responses for the current global financial

crisis will be analyzed. Finally, the project concludes with some limitations.

Keywords Global financial crisis, International financial institutions, Asian region

1.0 Introduction

Before the Asian financial crisis of 1997, the Southeast Asian country’s economy has ten years

consecutive of rapid growth. Accompanied by rapid economic growth, banking facilities in these

countries increase at a faster rate and their short-term external debt has reached to the

unprecedented levels. During that period, a most considerable part the countries invest in is

real estate. The rapid growth of investment in Asian Region cause the asset price explosion

and lead to the inflation happen, especially in Thailand and Malaysia. In addition, the lack

flexibility of exchange rate regime makes a lot of foreign debt overlook the exchange rate risk.

These help crises foreshadowed.

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The crisis first erupted from Thailand on March 1997. With the development of the

crisis, the Thai baht’s collapse in July 1997 cost the region 10 billions of dollars and leads many

observers to speculate about an impending ―lost decade‖ in Asia (Barton, 2007). In order to

solve this problem, the international organization – International Monetary Fund (IMF) provided

a lot of assistance. However, the country’s financial market is still deteriorating and spread to

Hong Kong and US markets. The effected Asian countries try to take measures, as well as

economic and financial reform to stabilize financial markets and financial system. In 1998, after

the initial turmoil, some of the Asian countries’ financial markets began to stabilize. The

government in the crisis countries has further their efforts to reform the economy and financial

system. Finally, the financial crisis came to the end in 1999.

East Asian Banking Systems emerged after the 1997/98 crisis. The emerging East

Asia has restructured significantly, foreign and domestic sources have injected capital, and

banking institutions have moved into investment banking-type activities and greater household

and real estate lending (Adams, 2008). In addition, authorities have strengthened the

supervisory and regulatory regimes under which banks operate and have been adapting them

to changing conditions in financial markets and financial globalization (Adams, 2008). Based on

the Asian Development Bank (2008), the restructuring of regional banking systems has

centered around four main elements. There are closures, cleanups/write downs of distressed

bank asserts, new capital injections from official and private sources, as well as forward-looking

financial sector master action plans. Structural reforms were given more prominence than in

typical IMF programs. The details of these reforms were formulated in collaboration with the

authorities in each country, as well as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank (ADM)

(International Monetary Fund, 2000).

Based on IMF staff on June, 2000, ―Chiang Mai Initiative‖ among ASEAN members

and China, Korea, and Japan was announced by the ASEAN+3 finance ministers, covering in

May 2000 on the margin of the annual meeting of the board of governors of the ASIAN

Development Bank (ADB). ―Chiang Mai Initiative‖ organized in order to recovery the temporary

financial difficulties and to enhanced regional cooperation with intention to cooperate in four

principal areas, such as monitoring capital flows, regional surveillance, swap networks, and

training personnel (International Monetary Fund, 2000).

After a remarkable ten years of transformation, Asia’s financial system become stable

and more robust than it was in 1997. Sitting atop an enormous rising economic tide, it is poised

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to benefits from a host of factors, including the rise of China and India, the reemergence of

Japan, robust intraregional trade, enormous infrastructure-financing needs, and the

opportunities presented by increasingly powerful Asian sources of capital (Barton, 2007). Asia

appears set to play an important role in the world’s financial system over the coming decade,

which is a true third partner in the global triad, along with Europe and the United states (Barton,

2007).

This project proposes to study about the current global financial crisis and its

implication on international financial institutions on Asian region. This project first will briefly

touch about the Asian financial crisis happened in the Asian region in 1997. Due to the initial

impact on the Asian region, the Asian developing countries are drawing on lessons of ten years

ago. The reform of Asian Banking Systems after the 1997/98 crisis has completely changed the

fate of the Asian financial sector for the current global financial crisis. This project discusses the

implication of international financial institutions on Asian region by current global financial crisis

in the separate directions with several Asian countries, there are East Asian – China, Japan,

North & South Korea, and Hong Kong; South Asian – India and Pakistan; Western Asian –

Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey; as well as Southeast Asia – Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines,

Thailand, and Singapore.

2.0 Objectives of the Study

1. To understanding the knowledge of current global financial crisis

2. To know how current global financial crisis implicated on international financial

institutions in Asian Region

3. To identify the impact of current global financial crisis on international financial

institutions in Asian Region

4. To analysis the Asian Region’s responses for the current global financial crisis

3.0 Literature Reviews

The global financial crisis affects every country in the world. The world is near the

bottom of a global recession that is causing widespread business contraction, increases in

unemployment, and shrinking government revenues (Nanto, 2009). The global effects were the

consequence of the high degree of economic and financial integration that is a central

characteristic of the 21st century economic and financial system (Truman, 2010). According to

Berrone (2008), the 2008 financial crisis provides at least two important lessons regarding

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incentives. First, we still need to learn a lot about risks; Second, current pay practices have

outraged public and government leaders. We know that International Financial Institutions (IFIs)

will play their role in financing the suitable development. Of course, they will also have some

limitations in carrying out their plan or face some others problem when promoting or

implementing the policies. According to Kanbur (2002), when people talk of the International

Financial Institutions (IFIs), they mean the two Bretton Woods institutions, the International

Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Any multilateral organization with financial operations is

an IFI—for example, the regional multilateral banks, regional monetary authorities, some

agencies of the United Nations Organization that disburse funding, etc (Kanbur, 2002).Most

significantly, the two largest and most important IFIs, the World Bank and the International

Monetary Fund (IMF), were created more than fifty years ago, in the aftermath of World War II,

when one country, United States, towered over the rest financially, global exchange rates were

fixed, international financial flows were tiny, trade was burdened with steep tariffs and quotas,

private sector investment and lending in developing countries were negligible, and the principle

of free-market capitalism was not widely accepted (Lugar, 2010).The International Monetary

Fund (IMF) was created at the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference in New Hampshire to prevent

a return of the international financial chaos that preceded World War II with the mission to

―foster global growth and economic stability‖, provide ―policy advice and financing to members

in economic difficulties‖, and work ―with developing nations to help them achieve

macroeconomic stability and reduce poverty‖ (Lugar, 2010).Table 1 shows the total IMF credit

outstanding for all members from 1984-2009 which divided into two categories: (i) GRA:

General Resources Account; (ii)PRGF-ESF: Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility and the

Exogenous Shocks Facility.

Table 1: International Monetary Fund Disbursements.

According to Lugar (2010), although the international financial institutions (IFIs) are run

by their own managements, the member governments exercise policy direction and oversight

responsibility. A board of governors for each IFI, representing all member countries, meets

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once a year to make policy decisions, while boards of executive directors meet more frequently

to approve projects and supervise operations of the institutions (Lugar, 2010).

World Bank, on the other hand, was created as the result of the 1944 Bretton Woods

Conference. World Bank currently focused on the achievement of the Millennium Development

Goals, aims to ―fight poverty‖ and ― to help people help themselves and their environment by

providing resources, sharing knowledge, building capacity, and forging partnerships in the

public and private sectors‖ (Lugar, 2010). Table 2 shows the World Bank operations. World

Bank divides its lending between the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development

(IBRD) and International Development Association (IDA) (Lugar, 2010).

Table 2: World Bank Operations.

Next IFI would be more focus on Asian region: Asian Development Bank (AsDB) which

is founded in 1966. According to Lugar (2010), the Asian Development Fund (AsDF), the

AsDB’s concessional facility, was created in 1972 to provide loans to Asia’s poorest countries

and is funded principally through periodic replenishments by donor nations. Table 3 shows the

Asian Development Bank Group Loans which is divided into two categories: (i) AsDB; and (ii)

AsDF. There are still lots of IFIs in the world.

Table 3: Asian Development Bank Group Loans.

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To identify how global financial crisis happen, we must know what subprime mortgage

crisis is. What started as an asset bubble caused by an array of financial derivatives that, inter

alia, drove the sub-prime mortgage boom, exploded into a housing and banking crisis with a

cascading effect on consumer and investment demand (Abidin, &Rasiah, 2009). By oxford

dictionary (n. d.), sub-prime is an adjective denoting or relating to credit or loan arrangements

for borrowers with poor credit history, typically having unfavourable conditions such as high

interest rates. Poor people might have higher risk of unable to repay their loan. Therefore,

banks come out with the subprime mortgage which consists of higher interest rate compare to

the conventional loan. Thus, banks benefit themselves by earning more interest rate. If the

borrowers are unable to repay the loan, the bank will sell the houses with a higher value.

Otherwise, the banks repackaged the subprime mortgages into an investment product—

mortgage-backed securities and sell it to financial institutions. This is one of the main causes of

the global financial crisis. Figure 1 shows the comparison of traditional model mortgage and

subprime model mortgage lending’s pattern.

Figure 1: The comparison of traditional model and sub-prime model of mortgage lending.

Banks keep on lowering the level of qualification to obtain the loan because their main

focus is on the earning of high interest rate and the bank will not keep the mortgage but sell it

to the bond markets. Figure 2 clearly show that the gap between income and loan become

bigger. In 1994, the income is about $73, 000 and loan is about $120, 000. By 2005, as

subprime lending peaked, nearly the same median income could get a $183, 000 loans. The

amount of borrowing has increased one half while the income increases only about a thousand.

The facilitation of applying loan caused the global financial crisis.

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Figure 2: Increasing percentage of income goes to housing.

Thing always come with the side effects. These subprime mortgage crises are then

lead the global financial system into a low tide. Once a thing is demanded by lots of people, its

value will definitely increase. Same goes to the subprime mortgage crisis situation, everyone

wants to buy a house since the mortgage loan is easy to apply. Financial institutions were

looking to generate more money and income. However, the household income did not increase

until they cannot afford to repay the loan or buy a new house. Thus, the house value decrease

and the real estate market begin to cold down as shown in Figure 3. Lots of the American has

to give up their homeownership. The situation of ―less people demand for the oversupply

houses‖ leads to the decrease of house price in late 2006 and early 2007. We can say that

there is lots of ―cash with no actual value‖ were being generated. Thus, crisis happened.

Figure 3: The OFHEO House Price Index, Quarterly Changes at Annual Rates.

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Figure 4 below show The Subprime 25 which provides rank, lender and loan volume

between 2005 and 2007, at the peak and collapse of the subprime market. According to Figure

4, the top 25 lenders have accounted for $997, 538, 108, 000 of loans, which is nearly $1

trillion, within 2 years time.

Figure 4: The Subprime 25.

The collapse of United States subprime mortgage market led to an international

financial crisis. A little thing can now affect the economy as a whole and turning a global

financial crisis into global economic crisis very quickly. Besides that, the borrowers fail to repay

the loan. Numerous small banks and households still face huge problems in restoring their

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balance sheets, and unemployment has combined with subprime loans to keep home

foreclosures at a high rate (Nanto, 2009). Several countries have restored to borrowing from

the International Monetary Fund as a last resort (Nanto, 2009). Nanto (2009) continue by

providing example that due to the impact of the financial crisis, several Central and Eastern

European countries have already sought emergency lending from the IMF to help finance their

balance of payment. IMF also announced certain amount lending to countries to help them in

stabilizing their economic. Entire banking system has less confidence in lending and their rapid

loss caused a sharp decline in their stock price. In addition, mortgages also have been sold

and resold and pooled together into securities, which mean that it is hard to find who the actual

current owner of the mortgage is. The crisis has exposed fundamental weaknesses in financial

systems worldwide, demonstrated how interconnected and interdependent economics are

today, and has posed vexing policy dilemmas (Nanto, 2009).

Figure 5: Asian Current Account Balances

From Figure 5, we know that Asian current Account Balances are mostly healthy.

According to Nanto (2009), Asia and the United States are deeply linked in many ways,

including trade (primarily Asian exports to the United States), U.S. investments in the region,

and financial linkages that entwine Asian banks, companies and governments with U.S.

markets and financial institutions. As a result, even though Asian banks disclosed relatively low

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direct exposures to failed institutions and toxic assets in the United States and Europe, Asian

economies were caught in a second phase of the crisis (Nanto, 2009). Asian economies did

suffer from these situations. According to Nanto (2009), with Western economies slowing and

global investors short of cash and pulling back from any markets deemed risky, many Asian

economies suffered sharp slowdowns or dipped into recession in the fourth quarter of 2008 or

the first quarter of 2009. Several Asian countries—including China, Japan, South Korea,

Thailand, Malaysia, Taiwan and Singapore—implemented large fiscal stimulus programs that

have shown signs of stimulating domestic investment and consumption (Lugar, 2010). For

example, Japan announced several stimulus packages that amounted to 5% of the nation’s

GDP, while China implemented a package worth 12% of GDP (Lugar, 2010).

4.0 Discussion and Findings

4.1 TheWays the Current Global Financial Crisis ImplicationsInternational Financial

Institutions in Asian Region

After the financial crisis in 1997 and had an exceptional growth. The world economy now

entered a period of instability and uncertainty again due to the US subprime mortgage crisis in

2007. Following by the major US investment bank - Lehman Brothers went bankrupt on

September 15, 2008, the economy situation around the world failed into burst out stage. The

current global financial and economic crises have important implications on international

financial institutions in the countries of the South-East Asian Region.In the present situation,

the Asian financial system by the financial crisis in the US is relatively limited. The main cause

is Asian banks are mostly focused on traditional lending business, thus, a number of countries

degree of internationalization of the banking business is relatively low if compare with the

European and American banks. Since Asian Banking Systems emerged after the 1997/98

Asian financial crisis, Asian countries strengthen supervision of the financial industry helps to

reduce the risks faced by financial institutions.

According to Akyuz (2008), the way and extent the crisis will affect the economies in

the region is depends on the inter alia, on present vulnerabilities which are greatly shaped by

the manner in which the recent surge in capital flows has been managed. The crisis influenced

Asian region in four areas of vulnerability associated with surges in capital inflows: (i) Currency

and maturity mismatched in private balance sheets; (ii) credit and asset bubbles and excessive

investment in property and other sectors; (iii) unsustainable currency appreciations and

external deficits; and (iv) lack of self-insurance against a sudden reversal of capital flows, and

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excessive reliance on outside help and policy advice (Akyuz, 2008).According to Akyuz (2008),

the crisis started out as a currency crisis with large devaluation of the domestic currencies, but

quickly evolved into a financial crisis in which banks were unable to repay their foreign debts. In

turn, this lead to an economic crisis as domestic firms was starved of credit and went bankrupt:

illiquidity turned quickly into insolvency (Akyuz, 2008).

The US financial crisis affects the banking and financial markets in Asian region are

directly related to the US sub-prime mortgage losses. From the disclosure of data by some

financial institutions in Asia, the Asian banking industries involved in subprime-related losses

are relatively small, it is not will the banking and financial systems in Asia pose a systemic

impact. Next is because of a crisis of confidence. The US financial crisis will deal a blow to

investor confidence and trigger capital outflows, decreased mobility, as well as shrunk the stock

market. By the U.S. financial crisis, stock and currency markets in the region has a turbulent

situation. Before the recovery of investor confidence, the Asian financial markets may last for a

severe shock. Third is affects the real economy through trade channels, thereby affecting the

banking and financial systems in Asia. The U.S. financial crisis reduced external demand and

leads the Asian countries face an economic slowdown. This may further lead to the Asian

banking industry's loan quality deteriorated sharply, adversely affect the banks’ stability and

operation performance. The fourth cause the current global financial crisis affects financial

institutions in Asian region is deterioration in external financing conditions. Since the US sub-

prime crisis, some Asian emerging market countries to issue sovereign debt risk premium is a

sharp increase in financing conditions deteriorate, the external financing for these countries

and institutions have an adverse impact.

4.2 The Impact of Current Global Financial Crisis on International Financial Institutions

in Asian Region

Based on the BIS Papers (2010), when the international financial crisis began in mid-2007, the

initial impact on the Asian region was limited in scale and severity. The government in Asian

developing countries has taken good macro policies, the enterprises have improved their

balance sheets, and the banks have reduced the non-performing loans. Most of the

fundamentals of the economy are stable and the large foreign exchanges reserves help

cushion the spread of the crisis. Therefore, the Asian region influenced by the current global

financial crisis is not that much seriously. However, together with the rest of the world,

prospects for Asian region abruptly changed in mid-September 2008 following the bankruptcy

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of US investment bank Lehman Brothers (BIS, 2010). The region experienced large capital

outflows and serious difficulties refinancing US dollar liabilities. Most Asia countries’ currencies

depreciated. Figure 6 show the total financing of mortgage-backed securities from 2000 to

2007 and Lehman Brothers was ranked the first.

Figure 6: Total Financing of Mortgage-Backed Securities (2000-2007)

As mentioned earlier, the impact of current global financial crisis on international

financial institutions in Asian region will be discussed separately: East Asian, South Asian,

West Asian, as well as Southeast Asia, and several of the countries in the Asian region will be

chosen to discuss.

East Asian

The current global financial crisis in the US most directly impacts the Japan and China financial

institutions due to the US sub-prime mortgage. In Japan, the framework to deal with troubled

financial institutions was not well-equipped. According to Wanandi (2008), there were six major

financial institutions in Japan (especially Mitsubishi UFJ, Mizuho Financial Group, Sumitimo

Mitsui and Sumitomo Trust & Banking) are expected to book 40%fall in their combined net

profit for the last fiscal year due to the losses linked to the US sub-prime mortgage crisis.

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Wanandi (2008) continued that these loses have been estimated to the amount between 700

and 800 billion yen. While in China, the sub-prime exposure of the Bank of China, ICBC, and

the China Construction Bank is reported in the order of $11 billion (Wanandi, 2008). Siddiqui

(2009) argued that the Chinese financial sector has been mostly unscathed in the short run by

the global financial crisis because of the direct risk exposure is limited. When the financial crisis

started in the US, the mainstream economist and international financial institutions claimed that

it would have marginal or no impact on the emerging economies of namely China and India

because of the ―decoupling‖ effects and also because these economies have adopted market

reforms which had made these economies more efficient and competitive so that they could

withstand such challenges (Siddiqui, 2009).

During the current global financial crisis, Korea faced macro financial instability and the

exports from and imports to Korea have rapidly decreased. The gross domestic product (GDP)

growth rate of Korea shrank to -5.6% from the preceding quarter and became one of the lowest

growth rates among Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)

countries (Kang, 2010). The Korean financial markets are suffering from massive financial

deleveraging by foreign investors as well. According to Kang (2010), there has two aspects of

the financial vulnerability of the Korean banking sector are notable, the first one is the rapid

increase of short-term foreign debt beginning in 2006, and the other is the highly joined by

household debt that rose to 158% of disposable household income by the end of 2008. These

aspects caused the Korean currency has sharply depreciated, became one of the highest

depreciation rates among major currencies, and is fluctuating against the US dollar (Kang,

2010).

Hong Kong operates a three-tier banking system which distinguishes between licensed

banks, restricted license banks (RLB) and deposit-taking companies (DTC). The banks have no

lending or investment restrictions. Hong Kong’s banks entered the crisis in a healthy condition

with returns on assets above 1.5%, sufficient capitalization, strong but prudently managed loan

growth and very low impairments (Mulhaupt, &Dyck, 2009). The global financial crisis hit Hong

Kong’s banks in H2 2008 and heavily impacted on banks’ income statements. According to

Mulhaupt and Dyck (2009), pre-tax profits of the ten largest banks deteriorated in H2 2008,

falling by almost 50% compared to H1 2008 (Please refer to the Figure 7). However, the net

interest income remained stable, the decline can largely be attributed to slumping fee and

commission incomes (included in other operating income) and higher impairment charges in

light of rising non-performing loans and a grim economic outlook (Mulhaupt, &Dyck, 2009).In

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addition, the interest margins had strong decline in September 2008 due to the failure of

Lehman Brothers caused banks hoard their liquidity, with the HIBOR closely following rising US

interbank rates due to the HKD-USD peg (Mulhaupt, &Dyck, 2009). In order to solve this

problems, the Monetary Authority (HKMA) responded by injecting liquidity into the banking

system through several operations. This brought the overnight HIBOR below 0.5% while

lending rates for prime borrowers remained almost unchanged at 5% (Mulhaupt, &Dyck,

2009).Funding problems of banks combined with the increasingly bleak economic outlook led

banks to reduce lending.

Figure 7: Income and Profitability Deteriorating

The World Bank has argued that East Asian economies have better prepared to fight

for the current global financial crisis because the countries have strong external payments

positions and large international reserves, prudent fiscal and monetary policies, better

regulated banking systems, and profitable and competitive corporations (Wanandi, 2008).

However, the World Bank has also pointed to the fact that East Asia should not be seen as

being able to insulate itself from developments elsewhere. In fact, the region’s increased

integration in the world’s trading and financial systems makes it sensitive to global economic

conditions (Wanandi, 2008). The ―decoupling theory‖ that appears to be popular in some

quarters in East Asia cannot be substantiated empirically and carries with it an inherent danger

of inducing a sense of complacency (Wanandi, 2008).

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South Asian

Pakistan’s economic situation has worsened because of large number of capital outflows due

to the US global financial crisis. The depreciated of Rupee value made the debt financing more

costly, while foreign exchange reserves have continued to reduce in size (Malik, Ullah, Azam, &

Khan, 2009). The operating environment of the financial sector experienced significant

deterioration in 2007 and 2008, due to a confluence of factors emanating from both the

domestic and international economic and financial developments (Ali, 2009).Ali (2009)

explained that the global financial crisis and the commodity price hike had a feedback impact

on the financial sector through the real sector of the economy. With a thriving banking sector,

increasingly resilient to a wide variety of shocks, increasing but still relatively less correlation of

domestic financial markets with global financial developments, a proactive and vigilant

regulatory environment, and most importantly, no direct exposure to securitized instruments,

risks to financial stability were largely contained and well managed as the crisis unfolded and

impacted the financial sectors in advanced economies (Malik, Ullah, Azam, & Khan, 2009).Ali

(2009) illustrated that Pakistan unscathed from a direct impact of the crisis, has been more

concerned with issues relating to monetary stability due to rising inflation since before the

advent of the crisis.

On the other hand, the direct effect of the sub-prime crisis on Indian financial sector

was almost negligible because of limited exposure to complex derivatives and other prudential

policies put in place by the Reserve Bank (Mohan, 2009). Mohan (2009) continued that the

relatively lower presence of foreign banks in the Indian banking sector also minimized the direct

impact on the domestic economy. Strict regulation and conservative policies adopted by the

Reserve Bank of India are relatively insulated from the travails of their western counterparts

(Malik, Ullah, Azam, & Khan, 2009).

West Asian

Private commercial banks owned by residents in Turkey drop in a large number between 2002

and 2008, while the number of foreign banks originally founded in Turkey increased by an

almost equal amount in the same period. According to Uygur (2010), during the recent crisis as

of September 2009, there are as yet no banks transferred to the SDIF, no changes in

ownership, no liquidation and thus no fall in the number of banks. Banks in Turkey are relatively

good compare to the banks in other countries. This is because the banking sector was

restructured in the crisis of 2000 to 2001 and well regulated and supervised. Besides that, at

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the time of the recent global financial crisis, ―there were no toxic financial instruments in banks’

portfolios‖ and they extended only a limited amount of mortgage credits (Uygur, 2010).

Based on Al-Hamidy (n.d.), there were no significant changes in the domestic

interbank market in Saudi Arabia due to ample SAR liquidity availability. The steps taken by the

Saudi Government in the wake of the global financial crisis went a long way to restoring full

confidence in Saudi banks, the banking system and the Saudi interbank market (Al-Hamidy,

n.d.).Saudi banks continued to provide liquidity to each other and to international banks at

competitive rates. Therefore, the interbank rates were low. In the global interbank market, there

was a shortage of dollar liquidity in 2008 and 2009 due to the global money market squeeze

(Al-Hamidy, n.d.). Thus, SAMA injected dollar liquidity through foreign exchange swaps and

direct deposits with local banks and this were helpful in mitigating the impact of global events

on the local market.

The current global financial crisis is reflected in Israel mainly by the fall in prices of

shares and corporate bonds. The rate of growth declined to 2.3% (annual rate) in the third

quarter, and it is expected that the slowdown in Israel’s growth rate will continue to 1.5% in

2009, as opposed to a more significant slowdown, or even a recession in the advanced

economies (Fischer, 2008). However, because of the Bank of Israel’s interest rate policy

supported financial stability and the ability of the economy to deal successfully with the effects

of the slowdown in growth and the Israel banking system is strong and stable compared with

those of the advanced economies (Fischer, 2008). Therefore, the Israel is relatively in the

favorable situation.

Southeast Asia

The global financial crisis is transmitted to Malaysia mainly through the financial and trade

channels (Wanandi, 2008). Same goes as other Asian countries, Malaysia suffered capital

outflows since the second quarter of 2008.According to Goh and Lim (2010), portfolio

investments are the most volatile and recorded the largest net outflow of RM84.4 billion in 2008,

compared to a positive net inflow of RM18.4 billion in 2007 (Please refer to the Table 4).

Malaysia was one of the countries affected by portfolio investment outflows in 2008 and this big

reversal of portfolio capital flows due to divestments by foreign financial institutions with the

onset of the global financial crisis led to a decline in reserves in the second half of 2008 (Goh,

& Lim, 2010).

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Table 4: Financial Account in the Malaysia Balance of Payments, 2007-2008 (RM Billion)

The impact of the crisis on the Malaysian banking system was relatively modest as

domestic banks had negligible exposure to US sub-prime loan products (Goh, & Lim, 2010).

Generally, the Malaysian banking system has a stronger position compared to the Asian

financial crisis when entered the current global financial and economic crisis. It is because the

Malaysian banking system have strengthened and built significant buffers during the ten years

after the Asian Financial crisis. At yearend 2008, the Malaysian banking system operates within

a diversified financial system, with a developed capital market. According to Malik, Ullah, Azam,

and Khan (2009), the total bonds outstanding accounted for 86% of Gross Domestic Product

providing an alternative funding for the economy in Malaysia and are evenly balanced between

the equity and bond markets and the banking sector. Thus, these diversifying credits risk

concentration away from the banking system, which in turn provides the banking system with

added capacity to withstand stress and shocks (Goh, & Lim, 2010).

Philippine economy slowed down considerably in 2008, which same goes as other

emerging markets. Table 2 shows that GDP growth rate for the first three quarters of 2008 fell

to 4.6%, compared to 7.5% in the same period in 2007 (Please refer to the Table 5). According

to Malik, Ullah, Azam, & Khan (2009), the deceleration in the Philippine economy was largely

brought about by a surge in inflation triggered by the sharp rise in food and fuel prices and to a

lesser extent the US recession, but not because of the current global financial crisis. The

Philippine’s financial institutions largely reflected by a number of factors which mentioned

earlier during the global financial crisis, there are: (i) the very limited direct exposure of the

region to sub-prime and other related securitized products; (ii) relatively strong bank balance

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sheets with a return to profitability – as impaired loans from the 1997/98 Asian financial crisis

have been worked off; (iii) improvements in risk and liquidity management; (iv) strengthening of

supervisory and regulatory systems; and (v) moves by banks into new and profitable domestic

business lines such as consumer lending (Yap, 2009). The move into consumer lending implies

an absence of the strong search for yield that led many banks and other financial institutions in

industrialized countries to take on too much leverage and risk (Malik, Ullah, Azam, & Khan,

2009).

Table 5: Key Indicators of the Philippines (in percent)

The direct impact of the global financial crisis on the Thai banking system has been

very small in terms of the decline in lending of foreign banks operating locally and cross-border

lending (Wanandi, 2008).This is because Thailand has very low reliance on foreign sources of

funding as well as has low exposure to foreign assets. According to Malik, Ullah, Azam, and

Khan (2009), foreign banks operating locally account for only 10% of the total assets of the

banking system, while foreign funding accounts for only 3.5% of the total liabilities of the

banking system. The authors continued that the stable domestic deposits form the core of the

Thai banking system’s funding source, at around 77% of total liabilities. Moreover, 95% of bank

loans to households, corporations, and the government sector were in local currency, thus,

mitigating any risk of currency mismatch. The lessons learned from the 1997 financial crisis

contributed to reducing Thailand’s vulnerability and exposure to contagion associated with the

global financial crisis.

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The last three months of 2008 sent the strongest sense of crisis to the country, as

worrying signs were spotted everywhere, from the financial market to the real sector of the

Indonesia economy. Economic growth in the last quarter fell short of the previously estimated

5.7%. It was much lower: 5.2% for the fourth quarter of 2008, with export growth dropping to

the lowest level since 1986 (1%) (Titiheruw, Soesastro, & Atje, 2009).According to the latest

data from Bank Indonesia, Foreign Direct Investment was still increasing in the quarter to

December 2008, whereas portfolio investment had continued its declining trend since the

previous quarter. According to Titiheruw, Soesastro, and Atje (2009), the financial contagion

may have occurred swiftly as investors’ appetite for emerging market diminished. Indonesia

which began to reply for development financing on debt securities and private sector financing

after the 1997-1998 crisis is now vulnerable to external shocks that result in disruption of

foreign capital flows (Titiheruw, Soesastro, & Atje, 2009). Most foreign investments are short

term and it is very easy to change course. While foreign direct investment (FDI) has increased

since 2005, portfolio investment still takes up a great portion of foreign investment flows to the

country (Titiheruw, Soesastro, & Atje, 2009). Most foreign capital flow went to government

securities, reaching a peak in the second quarter of 2008. During the last three months of 2008,

a massive sell-off of government bonds and Bank Indonesia certificates by foreign investors put

the capital and financial account of the balance of payments in deficit (Malik, Ullah, Azam, &

Khan, 2009). There was increase in currency and deposit placements by private sectors

abroad. When the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy was announced, the foreign holdings of

government securities reversed course abruptly in mid-September 2008. This trend appeared

to stabilize in November 2008.

4.3 The Asian Region’s Responses for the Current Global Financial Crisis

During the height of the global financial free-fall in the third quarter of 2008, Asian members

have taken several responses to the global financial crisis. In order to protect Asian banking

systems, some economies in the region such as Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Singapore have

emulated what the US and some European countries recently did (Wanandi, 2008). For

example, guaranteed the repayment of customer deposits held with authorized institutions.

Korea has unveiled a US$13 billion package to guarantee short-term foreign bank loans.

Economies in Philippines and Singapore are considering easing the mark-to-market accounting

rules so that declines in asset values (Wanandi, 2008).China, India, and Pakistan have

reduced reserve requirements on deposits. The fewer resources countries such as Indonesia,

Philippines, and Pakistan have started informal discussions with international financial

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institutions for precautionary financial packages to stabilize their economies, avoid balance of

payments crises, or rescue financial institutions facing liquidity problems (Wanandi, 2008).

In addition, economies in the Asian region quickly joined the world community in a

globally coordinated response through the upgraded G20 leaders’ summits in Washington DC

in November 2008 and in London in April 2009 in order to try contain the potential spread of

contagion, and the result showed that the Asian members of the G20 (the PRC, Japan,

Republic of Korea (henceforth Korea), Indonesia, Australia, Turkey, and arguably Russia)

made important contributions to the G20 leaders’ process at the Washington and London

meetings (Chin, 2012). To prevent the spread of financial crisis, the G20 leaders gave their

support to new lines of rapid financing, to be organized and disbursed by regional development

banks, to support developing and low-income countries to enact countercyclical policy (Chin,

2012). Moreover, G20 leaders instructed the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to greatly

increase its emergency lending capacity to support the Asian emerging economies and

developing countries in preventing financial contagion (Chin, 2012).

Next, most Southeast Asia economies adopted specific macro-prudential or capital-

control measures, especially in the regional financial centers (Shimada, & Yang, 2010). Bank

Indonesia introduced policy packages in June 2010 to manage liquidity, as well as to

encourage banks to conduct more transactions in the secondary market (Shimada, & Yang,

2010). This includes the implementation of a one-month minimum holding period for buyers of

Bank Indonesia certificates in the primary and secondary markets. Besides that, Singapore

also has a loan-to-value limit for residential loan; in February 2010, it strengthened this

measure by lowering the cap from 80% to 70% and by prohibiting ―interest-only‖ mortgages

(Shimada, & Yang, 2010). In October 2010, Thailand introduced a 15% withholding tax on

interest payments and capital gains on bonds held by foreign investors (Shimada, & Yang,

2010).

On the other hand, ASEAN Finance Ministers agreed on the importance of maintaining

sound fiscal and monetary policies to increase liquidity in the system without exacerbating

inflation and implementing policies that will sustain domestic demand as an important anchor of

growth. Besides that, they have discussed further measures towards deepening of the region’s

capital markets, reinforcing financial services liberalization, capital account liberalization,

cooperation in customs matters, and enhancing infrastructure financing (Wanandi, 2008).

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At the ASEAN+3 Finance Ministers’ Meeting in May 2009, the Ministers agreed to

establish the Credit Guarantee and Investment Facility (CGIF) to provide local currency-

denominated bonds with a guarantee in order to promote bond (Shimada, & Yang, 2010). In

April 2010, the ASEAN Finance Ministers agreed to establish the ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic

Surveillance Office (AMRO) – an independent regional surveillance unit to support the

successful implementation of CMIM. In addition, an ASEAN Regulatory Reform Dialogue

(ARRD) formed in order to serve as a high-level channel for exchanging views on regulatory

reform issues toward enhancing intra-ASEAN trade and investment flows (Shimada, & Yang,

2010).

5.0 Conclusion

As a conclusion, the global financial crisis affects every single country in the world. Start from

U.S. subprime mortgage crisis until the global financial and economy crisis, no one could

escape from the effects. Different countries act in different ways to face, overcome and handle

the problems. Some experienced heavily losses and some experienced policy changes in their

countries. However, every step taken should bring the country a brighter tomorrow.

The G-20 leaders deliver concrete policy actions as part of the mutual assessment

process supporting the G-20 goal of strong, sustained balanced global growth (Truman, 2010).

Here, the Asian leaders would have the chances to contribute to the system and benefit Asia

as a whole by carrying out their responsibilities and commitment. According to Truman (2010),

his recommendation is to strengthen the IMF and its role in the international economic and

financial system. For example, the G-20 leaders should agree to double the IMF’s quota

resources to support the Fund’s enhanced emergency financing role (Truman, 2010). A part

from that, IFIs should also redouble their efforts, including increasing resources for internal

controls, to battle the invidious corruption that has thwarted so many development projects

(Lugar, 2010). According to Lugar (2010), the international financial institution too often focus

on issuing loans rather than on achieving concrete development results within a finite period of

time. IFIs should create more stable economic growth in their client countries.

Asian region countries can also duplicate the way the other countries do to survive

themselves from the economy recession. As mentioned earlier, examples include guaranteed

the repayment of customer deposits held with authorized institutions, reduced reserve

requirements on deposits, avoid balance of payments crises, etc. These can help in protecting

the Asian banking systems. Some countries do carry out workable steps. For example,

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Singapore has a loan-to-value limit for residential loan; Thailand introduced a 15% withholding

tax on interest payments and capital gains on bonds held by foreign investors, and so on.

There are still ways and policies which can be carry out or apply to overcome the global

financial crisis negative impacts. We can handle the crisis as long as all of us work hand in

hand toward the same target.