Ackermann backs forging new bank anti-crisis fund

Nov 16, 2009, 14:47 GMT

Frankfurt - The chief executive of Germany's biggest bank lent his support Monday to the creation of a new European emergency fund to help banks through the type of crises that gripped the world international financial sector over the last more than two years.

Deutsche Bank chief Josef Ackermann told the Euro Finance Week conference in Frankfurt that both the finance sector and European governments could contribute to the fund, which would assist banks to unwind or provide them with additional capital.

'Perhaps we have to accept in the end that the state remains the shareholder of last resort in systemic banking crises,' he said.

A fund along the lines he has proposed could head off the need for mounting last minute rescues for financial houses that have found themselves hit by problems, Ackermann said.

Also speaking at the conference, Axel Weber, the head of the German central bank, the Bundesbank, warned that special care needed to be taken in the timing of exiting the big fiscal and monetary stimulus plans that were launched by governments and central banks around the world to counter the economic crisis.

Failure to ensure an orderly drawing down of the stimulus plans risked creating a new round of instability in financial markets, said Weber, who is also a member of the European Central Bank's governing council.

'When the right time for exiting is missed, there is a risk that this could create new fault lines,' said the Bundesbank chief.