UNIVERSITY OF NAIROBI

SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINSTRATION (MBA) PROGRAMME

DFI 605: FINANCIAL SEMINAR

MAY-AUGUST 2011 SEMESTER

GROUP WORK ASSIGNMENT

GROUP 10

THEORY OF FINANCIAL INTERMEDIATION

Submitted by:

NAME REG NO1. TIMOTHY SHITSHESWA2. RHODAH ONYANGO. D61/63208/2010 3. KENNETH OCHIENG. D61/61672/20104. JULIUS OPALA D61/64457/20105. BEN KAMONYE6. DENIS AGINI D61/63052/20107. WANJUI WINFRED D61/62884/20108. WILLIAM NYIKULI D61/60580/2010

SUPERVISOR: DR. ADUDA/MR. MIRIE

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

1.0: INTRODUCTION

What is Financial Intermediation?

Financial intermediation is the process which involves firms with surplus funds

depositing such funds to financial institutions who then lend to firms with deficits.

According Matthews and Thompson (2008); In the process of financial intermediation,

certain assets/liabilities are transformed to different assets/liabilities. As such, financial

intermediaries channel funds from economic units with surplus (savers) funds to

economic units which have deficits (borrowers) and these intermediaries attract funds

from individuals, businesses, and governments.

There are two types of financial intermediaries.

i) Banks

These are deposit financial institutions that advance loans directly to borrowers and

include commercial banks, savings banks, credit unions, etc.

ii) Non-bank financial intermediaries

These types of intermediaries lend through purchase of securities and include insurance

companies, pension funds and investment trusts that purchase securities, thus providing

capital indirectly rather than advancing loans.

Functions of Financial Intermediaries

Financial intermediaries ensure steady flow of funds from surplus to deficit units through

performing the following functions:

Maturity transformation: This is through converting short term liabilities to long term

assets. Banks deal with large number of lenders and borrowers and reconcile their

conflicting needs.

Risk transformation: This is through converting risky investments into relatively risk-free

ones through lending to multiple borrowers to spread risk.

Convenience denomination: This is through matching small deposits with large loans and

large deposits with small loans.

1.1: THEORITICAL FRAMEWORK

To conduct monetary and fiscal policies successfully, policy makers must have an

accurate assessment of the timing and effects of their policies on the economy. This

includes an understanding of the monetary transmission mechanisms through which

monetary policy affects the decisions of firms, households, financial intermediaries and

investors that alter the level of economic activity and prices.

Under the assumptions that financial markets are complete and information and

transaction costs are non-existent, the Modigliani and Miller (1958) theorem states that

the mix of debt and equity used to finance firms’ expenditures does not affect the

expected profitability of the project – the same investment decisions would be made,

irrespective of the mix of debt and equity finance. Fama’s (1980) extension of the

Modigliani-Miller theorem to the entire financial system allows the abstraction from

considerations of credit market conditions in macroeconomic models.

While the complete market assumption remains important in economics, the assumption

of zero information and transaction costs (or perfect information) has come under

increasing criticism since Akerlof’s (1970) seminal paper, which illustrated how

imperfect information between buyers and sellers can cause market malfunctioning. With

imperfect information, the market price reflects buyers’ perception of the average quality

of the product being sold, and sellers of low quality products will receive a premium at

the expense of those selling high quality goods. As a result, some high quality sellers will

stay out of the market, which will lower the average quality of the product and price of

the product even further, leading more high quality sellers to stay out of the market. The

process will continue and may preclude the market from actually opening. Efficient

markets require some mechanisms for overcoming the imperfect information problem.

In financial markets, an information asymmetry arises between borrowers and lenders

because borrowers generally know more about their investment projects than lenders do.

Intermediaries, which specialize in collecting information, evaluating projects and

borrowers, and monitoring borrowers’ performance, can help overcome the information

problem. Financial intermediaries thus exist because there are information and

transactions costs that arise from imperfect information between borrowers and lenders.

This implies that the assumptions upon which the Modigliani-Miller theorem is based,

and thus the macroeconomic models used by policy makers, do not hold. Conditions in

financial and credit markets can affect the real economy; and interest and exchange rates

are an incomplete description of the monetary transmission mechanism.

1.2: Traditional Theories of financial Intermediation (The perfect model

assumption)

Traditional theories of intermediation are based on transaction costs and information

asymmetry. They are designed to account for deposit taking institutions and insurance

firms which issue policies and channel funds to firms. They are built on the models of

resource allocation based on perfect and complete markets suggesting that it is frictions

such as transaction costs and asymmetric information that are important in understanding

intermediation (Allen and Santomero, 1997).

One such theory is the Arrow Debreu theory by Arrow and Debreu (1954) which

examined the dynamics of the whole economic system and was able to prove the

existence of a multimarket equilibrium in which there is no excess demand or supply.

The theory is based on assumptions that a competitive equilibrium exists if each person in

the economy possesses some quantity of every good available for sale in the market and

that exploitable labor resources exist which are capable of being used in the production of

desired goods / services.

The General equilibrium theory, by Leon (1934-1910) studied a theoretical economic

system in which all consumers were utility maximizers and firms were perfectly

competitive, showing that a unique stable equilibrium can exist under such conditions.

Modigliani-Miller theorem applied in this context asserts that the financial structure does

not matter. Households can construct portfolios which offset any position taken by an

intermediary and hence intermediation cannot create value (Fama, 1980).

The views above seem to be supported by the fact that increasingly, financial markets

have been and continue to be highly liberalized and deregulated. All information on

important macroeconomic and monetary data and on the quality and activities of market

participants is available in ‘real time’, on a global scale, owing to the developments in

information and communication technology. Firms can now issue shares over the Internet

and investors can put their order directly in financial markets. The communication

revolution has also reduced information costs tremendously. The liberalization and

deregulation give a strong stimulus towards the securitization of financial instruments,

making them transparent, homogeneous, and tradable in the international financial

centers in the world. Only taxes are discriminating, within countries. Transaction costs

still exist, but are declining due to the cost efficiency of ICT and efficiencies of scale.

The Arrow-Debreu Theory is based on the paradigm of complete markets. In the case of

complete markets, present value prices of investment projects are well defined. Savers

and investors interact easily because there is perfect information in the market at no cost.

Financial instruments are constructed and traded cost free and they fully and

simultaneously meet the needs of both savers and investors. With complete information,

it is expected that market parties have homogenous expectations and act rationally. In so

far as this does not occur naturally, intermediaries are useful to bring savers and investors

together and to create instruments that meet their needs.

Therefore, intermediaries are at best tolerated and would be eliminated in a move towards

market perfection, with all intermediaries becoming redundant; the perfect state of

disintermediation. This model is the starting point in the present theory of financial

intermediation. All deviations from this model which exist in the real world and which

cause intermediation by the specialized financial intermediaries are seen as market

imperfections. This suggests that intermediation is something which exploits a situation

which is not perfect, therefore is undesirable and should or will be temporary (Scholtens

and Wensveen, 2003).

It would be expected that financial intermediation should be fading away. One might

think so from the forces shaping the current financial environment: deregulation and

liberalization, communication, internationalization and so on. On the contrary, economic

importance of financial intermediaries is higher than ever and appears to be increasing.

Modern theories therefore try to explain this paradox:-

1.3: Modern Theories of Financial Intermediation

The modern theories of financial intermediation revolve around optimality, arbitrage

and equilibrium. Optimality refers to the notion that rational investors aim at optimal

returns. Arbitrage implies that the same asset has the same price in each single period in

the absence of restrictions. Equilibrium means that markets are cleared by price

adjustment – through arbitrage – at each moment in time (Scholtens and Wensveen,

2003).

While the complete market assumption remains important in economics, the assumption

of zero information and transaction costs (or perfect information) has come under

increasing criticism. Akerlof’s (1970) seminal paper, illustrated how imperfect

information between buyers and sellers can cause market malfunctioning. With imperfect

information, the market price reflects buyers’ perception of the average quality of the

product being sold, and sellers of low quality products will receive a premium at the

expense of those selling high quality goods. As a result, some high quality sellers will

stay out of the market; which will lower the average quality of the product and price of

the product even further, leading to more high quality sellers to stay out of the market.

The process will continue and may preclude the market from actually opening. Efficient

markets require some mechanisms of overcoming the imperfect information problem

(Akerlof, 1970).

Leland and Pyle, (1977) noted that traditional models of financial markets have difficulty

explaining the existence of financial intermediaries. They argued that if transactions costs

are not present, ultimate lenders might just as well purchase the primary securities

directly and avoid the costs which intermediation must involve. They concluded that

transactions costs could explain intermediation, but their magnitude does not in many

cases appear sufficient to be the sole cause and suggested that informational asymmetries

may be a primary reason that intermediaries exist.

Below are some of the theories or lines of reasoning that try to explain the existence of

financial intermediation thus:

Transaction Costs theory

Liquidity Insurance theory

Information sharing/asymmetry theory

Delegated monitoring theory

i. Transaction Costs Theory (Benston and Smith 1976)

The transaction costs approach holds that financial intermediaries exist because they have

a transaction costs advantage over individuals.

This is based on non convexities in transaction technologies, whereby the financial

intermediaries act as coalition of individual lenders or borrowers who exploit economies

of scale or scope in the transaction technology. The notion of transaction costs

encompasses not only exchange or monetary transaction cost (Tobin, 1963; Towey, 1974;

Fischer, 1983) but also search costs and monitoring and auditing costs (Benston and

Smith, 1976).

Financial intermediaries have a cost advantage in acquiring or processing information.

One reason for this advantage is that financial intermediation avoids duplication of

information collection (having a financial intermediary collect and process information

means that investors do not have to duplicate one another’s efforts). Also, financial

intermediaries are better able to assess the likelihood that a prospective borrower will

default, because of their past experience with borrowers. This cost advantage means that

the intermediaries have to specialize in the provision of financial services and, as a result,

resources can be allocated more efficiently.

ii. Liquidity Insurance Approach / Theory

Attributed largely to the works of Pyle (1971), Diamond and Dybvig (1983), and Hellwig

(1991). They consider banks as coalition of depositors that provide households with

insurance against shocks that adversely affects their liquidity position. They argued that

in the absence of perfect information, consumers are unsure of their future liquidity

requirements in the face of unanticipated events and hence they maintain a pool of

liquidity. Provided that shocks are not perfectly correlated across individuals, portfolio

theory suggests that total liquid reserves needed by financial institutions will be less than

the aggregation of reserves required by individual consumers acting independently.

The role of the financial intermediaries here is to transform particular financial claims

into other types of claims (qualitative asset transformation). As such, they offer liquidity

(Pyle, 1971) and diversification opportunities (Hellwig, 1991). The provision of liquidity

is a key function for savers and investors and increasingly for corporate customers,

whereas the provision of diversification increasingly is being appreciated in personal and

institutional financing. Holmström and Tirole (2001) suggest that this liquidity should

play a key role in asset pricing theory.

Diamond and Dybvig (1983) analyse the provision of liquidity (the transformation of

illiquid assets into liquid liabilities) by banks. In Diamond and Dybvig’s model, ex ante

identical investors (depositors) are risk averse and uncertain about the timing of their

future consumption needs. Without an intermediary, all investors are locked into illiquid

long-term investments that yield high payoffs only to those who consume late. Those

who must consume early receive low payoffs because early consumption requires

premature liquidation of long-term investments. Banks can improve on a competitive

market by providing better risk sharing among agents who need to consume at different

(random) times. An intermediary promising investors a higher payoff for early

consumption and a lower payoff for late consumption relative to the non-intermediated

case enhances risk sharing and welfare.

In Diamond and Dybvig (1983) the illiquidity of assets provides both the rationale for the

existence of banks and for their vulnerability to runs. A bank run is caused by a shift in

expectations. When normal volumes of withdrawals are known and not stochastic,

suspension of convertibility of deposits will allow banks both to prevent bank runs and to

provide optimal risk sharing by converting illiquid assets into liquid liabilities. In the

more general case (with stochastic withdrawals), deposit insurance can rule out runs

without reducing the ability of banks to transform assets.

iii. Information Asymmetry Theory

This theory contends that financial intermediaries exist because there are information and

transactions costs that arise from imperfect information between borrowers and lenders.

The information asymmetry theory is attributed to the works of Leland and Pyle (1977),

Diamond and Dybvig (1983) and Diamond (1984) among others.

Numerous markets are characterized by informational differences between buyers and

sellers. In financial markets, an information asymmetry arises between borrowers and

lenders because borrowers generally know more about their investment projects than

lenders do. Borrowers typically know their collateral, industriousness, and moral

rectitude better than do lenders; entrepreneurs possess "inside" information about their

own projects for which they seek financing.

Lenders would benefit from knowing the true characteristics of borrowers. But moral

hazard hampers the direct transfer of information between market participants. Borrowers

cannot be expected to be entirely straightforward about their characteristics, nor

entrepreneurs about their projects, since there may be substantial rewards for

exaggerating positive qualities and verification of true characteristics by outside parties

may be costly or impossible. Without information transfer, markets may perform poorly

(Leland and Pyle, 1977). Intermediaries, which specialise in collecting information,

evaluating projects and borrowers, and monitoring borrowers’ performance, can help

overcome the information problem.

These asymmetries can be of ex ante nature, generating adverse selection, they can be

interim, generating moral hazard, and they can be of ex post nature resulting in auditing

or costly state verification and enforcement.

Information asymmetry can cause a problem of adverse selection which can generate a

moral hazard resulting to auditing or costly verification and enforcement. Information

asymmetries generate market imperfections that lead to transaction costs. Financial

intermediaries seem to overcome these costs at least partly. Diamond and Dybvig, (1983)

consider banks as coalitions of depositors that provide households with insurance against

idiosyncratic shocks that adversely affect their liquidity position. Diamond (1984) shows

that these intermediary coalitions can achieve economies of scale and also act as

delegated monitors on behalf of ultimate savers. Monitoring involves increasing returns

to scale, which implies that specialization may be attractive. Individual households will

delegate monitoring activities to those specialists; the depositors will save their deposits

with the intermediaries and at times withdraw their deposits to discipline the intermediary

in his monitoring function.

iv. Theory of delegated monitoring of borrowers

This is one of the most influential theories in the literature on the existence of banks.

Diamond (1984) is of the view that financial intermediaries act as delegated monitors on

behalf of ultimate savers. Monitoring of a borrower by a bank refers to information

before and after a loan is granted including screening of on going creditworthiness and

ensuring that the borrower conforms to the contract.

A bank often has privileged information in the process because when it operates the

client’s current account then it can observe the flows of income and expenditures. This is

most relevant in the case of small and medium enterprises (Mathew and Thompsons2008)

The basic idea behind the theory of delegated monitoring is that not all savers (depositors

and the other creditors) have the time, inclination of or expertise to monitor institution

borrowers for defaults risk. They engage in indirect finance through using an

intermediary rather than direct financing.

Monitoring of borrowers involves increasing returns to scale which reinforces the view

that it is efficiently performed by specialist intermediacy. The monitor must have an

incentive to perform properly. One possibility is through reputational effects and banks

have developed substantial amounts of repopulation capital as monitors of debt (loan)

contracts issued to them by the borrowers that they fund and issue unmonitored debt

(deposit) contract.

Banks are able to perform as delegated monitors and to transfer loan that require costly

monitoring into deposits that do not depends critically on their use of portfolio

diversification. If the bank is sufficiently diversified across independent loans with

expected repayments in excess of the face value of deposit then the probability of the

bank defaulting on its deposit approaches zero. The theory shows that diversifying the

loan portfolio enables low-cost delegated monitoring. A key element in this theory is the

analysis and benefits of monitoring.

The collection of private information by intermediaries results in some benefits from

using this additional information in lending. The net demand for monitoring depends on

the cost of monitoring which in turn depends on the number of lenders who contract with

a given number of borrowers.

Regulation of financial intermediaries, especially of banks, is costly. There are the direct

costs of administration and of employing the supervisors, and there are the indirect costs

of the distortions generated by monetary and prudential supervision. Regulation however,

may also generate rents for the regulated financial intermediaries, since it may hamper

market entry as well as exit. So, there is a true dynamic relationship between regulation

and financial production. It must be noted that, once again, most of the literature in this

category focuses on explaining the functioning of the financial intermediary with

regulation as an exogenous force. Kane (1977) and Fohlin (2000) attempt to develop

theories that explain the existence of the very extensive regulation of financial

intermediaries in the dynamics of financial regulations.

CHAPTER TWO

2.0: EMPERICAL EVIDENCE

Evidence on the Determinants and Economic Consequences of Delegated

Monitoring: Anne Beatty, Scott Liao and Joseph Weber (December 2008)

The study objective was to investigate the factors that determine the cost and benefit

trade-offs of delegated monitoring and to examine the factors that determine delegated

monitoring, the consequences of delegated monitoring and whether the borrower

compensate the delegated monitor for their efforts through increased interest rate on the

loan. They used a sample of firms that entered into both public and private debt contracts

during the period January 1994 to February They studied 426 firms that had bank loans

outstanding before public debt issuances and 480 firms that issue bank debt while the

public debt is outstanding by analyzing several variables such as the size of the firm, level

of leverage, return on assets, firms credit rating and the standard deviation of returns.

The result showed that firms with cross-acceleration provisions are smaller, have a larger

returns variance, and have worse credit ratings implying that the firms are riskier while

firms using cross-acceleration provisions have larger absolute value of discretionary

accruals, suggesting that the performance of these firms is more difficult to measure.

They concluded that firms with cross-acceleration provisions also appear to have a more

concentrated group of lenders, with the lead lender holding a relatively larger share of the

loan. This suggests that firms with cross-acceleration provisions, on average, borrow

from banks with higher monitoring incentives. In terms of the control variables, they

found that riskier borrowers have larger spreads on their private debt agreements.

More specifically as leverage and return volatility increase and credit ratings get

worse, firms are charged larger interest rates. Firms that are required to provide

collateral are also charged a relatively larger rate but the rate decreases as return on

assets increases.

Are Banks liquidity transformers?: Akash Deep and Guido Schaefer (May 2004)

The study objective was to gauge the extent of liquidity transformation performed by

individual banks .They used data from the Reports of Condition and Income filed by all

federally regulated US commercial banks. The sample consists of the 200 largest banks

based on asset size in June 2001, which together controlled over 75% of total assets in the

US commercial banking sector.

The quarterly data used ranged from the second quarter of 1997 to the second quarter of

2001. Only banks that had data available for all these quarters were included in the

sample. The explanatory variables that they considered were deposit insurance coverage,

credit risk, bank size, and loan commitments.

They found out that a view of banks as primary liquidity transformers does not appear to

have a solid empirical foundation. The paper showed that the most important regulatory

initiative for facilitating liquidity transformation through deposit insurance has only

modest impact. The found out those additional insured deposits largely replaces

uninsured liabilities rather than expanding the deposit base of the bank or encouraging it

to make more loans while credit risk has a substantial impact on crowding out liquidity

risk from bank portfolios.

An empirical analysis of interest rate spread in Kenya: Rose W.Ngugi (May,

2001)

The study aimed to explain the factors determining interest rate spread for Kenya’s

banking sector the data consisted of monthly observations of treasury bill rates, commercial

bank loans and deposits, lending rates, deposit rates, inter-bank rates, provision for bad loans,

and liquidity and cash ratios. These data was obtained from the Central Bank of Kenya and

the sample ran from July 1991 to December 1999 for all data set except the inter-bank rate,

which was only available from April 1993.Cointergaration tests were carried out to ensure

long run relationship.

The result showed that the interest rate spread increased because of yet-to-be gained

efficiency and high intermediation costs. She showed that fiscal policy actions saw an

increase in treasury bill rates and high inflationary pressure that called for tightening of

monetary policy which resulted in banks increasing their lending rates but were reluctant to

reduce the lending rate when the treasury bill rate came down because of the declining

income from loans. The banks responded by reducing the deposit

rate, thus maintaining a wider margin as they left the lending rate at a higher level. High

implicit costs were realized with the tight monetary policy, which was pursued with

increased liquidity and cash ratio requirements.

CHAPTER THREE

3.0: UNRESOLVED ACADEMIC ISSUES IN FINANCIAL INTERMEDIATION

The main focus on financial intermediation theory what can be said to be the traditional

view of financial intermediation theory has been a focus on financial institutions i.e. the

so called financial institutes as channels or media of exchange where funds from units

who have surpluses are given to the financial intermediaries who then channel these

funds to areas of deficit units who need these funds. In the process financial

intermediaries have been known to perform four main critical functions namely:

Optimization of transaction costs

Provision of liquidity insurance

Bridging the information asymmetry gap, and;

Delegated monitory.

A lot of research has gone into these four key theories of financial intermediation which

seek to show and explain the behavior of financial intermediaries and their relation to

savers and to investors/entrepreneurs; however the key question of why financial

institutions exist still lingers on. Modern day financial theory is faced with questions and

challenges on what forces really drive the financial intermediation theory, what keeps

them alive and what is their contribution to the national and/or international economic

welfare.

It has been observed that despite the globalization of financial services, driven by

deregulation and information technology, and despite strong price competition, the

financial services industry is not declining in importance but it is growing (Bert Scholtens

& Wensveen, 2003). This seems paradoxical as it points to something important which

the financial intermediation theory, and the neo-classical market theory on which the

financial intermediation theory is based, do not explain, meaning that the existing

theories are actually leaving something out, something related to information production

but not covered by the theory of financial intermediation.

Bert Scholtens & Dick van Wensveen noted that all studies on the reasons behind

financial intermediation focused on the functioning of intermediaries in the

intermediation process but did not in themselves examine the existence of the real-world

intermediaries.

Two issues are of key importance arose, the first is about why there is demand for

financial intermediaries and the second is why financial intermediaries are willing and

able to take on the risks involved in their activity.

It has been proposed that risk management rather than informational asymmetries or

transaction costs is the reason why there is demand for financial institutions. Economies

of scale and scope as well as the delegation of the screening and monitoring function by

these intermediaries apply to dealing with risk itself, rather than only with information.

Risk, and not asymmetric information fuels its activity and risk taking basically

determines the value addition of financial intermediation to national income.

The growing importance of risk and the growing need of risk absorbing institutions and

instruments can explain the growing importance of the financial industry to the national

income. The demand for risk covering instruments grows and will continue to grow,

under the increasing volatility of interest rates, stock prices and foreign exchange rates.

In light of all these, the approach to financial intermediation that seek to answer why

there is demand for financial intermediaries and why financial intermediaries are willing

and able to take on the risks involved in their activity has brought about a new way of

looking at financial intermediation theory, namely;

Role of financial intermediaries in product and market innovation Role of financial intermediaries as an entrepreneurial provider of financial services Role of financial intermediaries in asset transformation, risk transformation and value

creation Financial intermediaries and their orientation to their customers both real investors

and savers

These four distinct roles form the backbone of the unresolved academic issues in

financial intermediation. Battacharya & Thakor in 1993 listed some of the issues which

they regarded as key questions and puzzles for financial intermediation research which

Scholtens and Wensveen branded as “unresolved issues” in 2003 and to the best of our

knowledge these issues have still not been conclusively resolved and could cover grounds

for future research. These are;

1. What is the role of financial institutions in financial innovation? Is this to the welfare of the society and the economy or themselves?

2. What are the economic bases for differences among financial systems across countries and through time due to technological differences and globalization?

3. What are the issues in banking system design - organizational structures, common trend of mergers and acquisitions amongst others?

4. How securities markets and non-bank financial intermediaries should be structured and regulated. Studies that move away from banks.

5. Regulation interferes in the intermediation process and it makes the financial sector an even more imperfectly competing – in more than one respect industry, as regulation by its nature is based on imperfect information for all other market participants.

6. The risks that are faced by the financial institutions such as credit risks, foreign exchange risk, technology risk, operational risk, political risk amongst others

CONCLUSION

In summary according to the modern theory of financial intermediation, financial

intermediaries are active because market imperfections prevent savers and investors from

trading directly with each other in an optimal way. The most important market

imperfections are the informational asymmetries between savers and investors. Financial

intermediaries, banks specifically, fill as agents and as delegated monitors of information

gaps between ultimate savers and investors. This is because they have a comparative

informational advantage over ultimate savers and investors. They screen and monitor

investors on behalf of savers. This is their basic function, which justifies the transaction

costs they charge to parties.

They also bridge the maturity mismatch between savers and investors and facilitate

payments between economic parties by providing a payment, settlement and clearing

system. Consequently, they engage in qualitative asset transformation activities. To

ensure the sustainability of financial intermediation, safety and soundness regulation has

to be put in place. Regulation also provides the basis for the intermediaries to enact in the

production of their monetary services.

All studies on the reasons behind financial intermediation focus on the functioning of

intermediaries in the intermediation process; they do not examine the existence of the

real-world intermediaries as such. It appears that the latter issue is regarded to be dealt

with when satisfactory answers on the former are being provided. Market optimization is

the main point of reference in case of the functioning of the intermediaries. The studies

that appear in most academic journals analyze situations and conditions under which

banks or other intermediaries are making markets less imperfect as well as the

impediments to their optimal functioning. Perfect markets are the benchmarks and the

intermediating parties are analyzed and judged from the viewpoint of their contribution to

an optimal allocation of savings, which means to market perfection. Ideally, financial

intermediaries should not be there and, being there, they at best alleviate market

imperfections as long as the real market parties have no perfect information. On the other

hand, they maintain market imperfections as long as they do not completely eliminate

informational asymmetries, and even increase market imperfections when their risk

aversion creates credit crunches. So, there appears not to be a heroic role for

intermediaries at all! But if this is really true, why are still in business, even despite the

fierce competition amongst themselves? Financial intermediaries have a crucial and even

increasing role within the real-world economy. They increasingly are linked up in all

kinds of economic transactions and processes.

It is predicted in Cecchetti (1999) that financial intermediaries of the future will provide a

host of services that are essential to the functioning of a modern economy. One such

service is access to the payments system. This service may be thought of as trade

execution. A second service financial intermediary will continue to provide is access to

liquidity.

There will always have to be some mechanism for channeling the savings of households

into the investments of firms which is the fundamental role of a financial intermediary. A

third service financial intermediary will have to offer a service related to a traditional

banking function is to package and sell risk, or to repackage and resell risk. This service

could be provided through a number of different institutional arrangements. A fourth

service financial intermediary will be called upon to offer is information. The provision

of information will include the certification of the quality of assets together with credit

review and possible follow-up. Finally, financial intermediaries will remain a means

through which government guarantees will be provided. This service will be provided

both explicitly and implicitly. Some financial intermediaries will continue to have access

to the central bank, which will operate as a lender of last resort.

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