WHY THE GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS HAD SO LITTLE IMPACT ON THE BANKING SYSTEMS OF EMERGENT EAST ASIA

The banking systems of the Emergent East Asian (EEA) economies have exhibited remarkable resilience to the global financial crisis. While this can be directly related to changes in structure, practice and regulation of banking in these countries that was engendered by the bitter experience of the 1997 Asian financial crisis, there are some important qualifications. Firstly, the East Asian banks were not central to the crisis, secondly the EEA economies were in excellent health, particular compared their situation in 1997, and thirdly the EEA had substantially improved macroeconomic management compared to 1997, which shielded the banks from the worst of the crisis. Thus, there is a possibility that the resilience banking systems of EEA have yet to be fully tested. However, whether this is the case or not, a very severe test appears to be looming in the shape of the end of QE in the USA, the prospect of interest rate rises and consequent major outflow of funds from Emergent Markets in general.