Come difendere la globalizzazione e salvaguardare i sistemi bancari dal contagio?

The work summarises the main literature on the impact of globalisation and of the crisis on banking systems. The main conclusion is that a more compelling approach to financial regulation appears as necessary, though the complete homogenisation of financial systems is not a goal to be sought. The current approaches in the Anglo-Saxon countries, based on the segmentation of banking activities seems a right choice, due to both the political difficulties in enacting a stricter regulation of finance and the practical difficulty of regulating a sector pervaded by financial innovation. However, both the Volcker rule and the British approach of ring-fencing, suffer from two limitations: the risk of transferring even more risk to the shadow banking system, and the difficulty in practice to distinguish between legitimate hedging activities and forbidden speculative activities.