Sharing the pain

The financial crisis has exposed serious flaws in risk management and business practices at many institutions across the world, and provided sizeable challenges for supervisors trying to extinguish the fires. Sabine Lautenschlager-Peiter, head of banking supervision at Bundesanstalt fur Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht, discusses some of the challenges facing the industry. By Rob Davies

The global financial landscape has altered beyond recognition over the past two years. When the dust eventually settles on the current crisis, the International Monetary Fund estimates financial sector losses could reach $2.2 trillion. German banks have had their fair share of pain - shortly after the crisis took hold in the second half of 2007, it emerged several financial institutions had invested heavily in US subprime mortgage-backed securities and the super-senior tranches of collateralised