Sam Bowman's comments on the Vickers Commission feature in IBTimes UK

Deputy Director Sam Bowman's comments on the Vickers Commission have featured in the International Business Times UK:

Sam Bowman, deputy director, of the Adam Smith Institute, told IBTimes UK: "Basically I think the Vickers Commission has come up with the wrong solution to the banking crisis.

"As I see it, we could either try to create a narrow banking system, where depositors' money is only lent out to extremely safe borrowers (e.g. the US, UK governments) and traditional loans are made by different financial institutions where the 'depositors' (more accurately described investors in this case) do not have immediate access to their funds, or we can try to make the banking system that we have as stable as possible.

"For stability, we want banks that are diverse and can withstand unexpected shocks. This is exactly the opposite of what Vickers will do – by splitting investment and retail arms of banks, Vickers makes both arms less steady.

"It's a mistake, I think, to equate systemic importance with size – America has thousands of small banks, but because they are very undiverse they are much more fragile than, say, Canada's banks, which are fewer in number but much more diversified," he said.