The Seventh Brunel Banking Conference: "Regulatory Approaches and Bank Management Strategies in a Time of Uncertainty"

By Professor E Philip Davis (Honorary and Emeritus Professor of Banking and Finance, Brunel and Fellow, NIESR)

30 Jun 2025

header-seventh-brunel-banking-conference

On 20th June 2025, the Brunel University Department of Economics, Finance and Accounting held the Seventh Brunel Banking Conference, entitled " Regulatory Approaches and Bank Management Strategies in a Time of Uncertainty"". The conference was held in person at Brunel (with scope for livestreaming).

The conference was organised by Professor E Philip Davis, Dr Dilly Karim and Professor Alper Kara. The meeting was opened by Professor Danae Manika (Executive Dean, Brunel Business School, Brunel University). With contributions from some of the world’s leading authorities on regulatory policy, bank behaviour and financial instability, this conference provided a critical overview of responses to prevailing uncertainty and enhanced risks on the part of banks, central banks and regulators and the outcome in terms of bank performance and financial stability.

This high-level conference (along with its predecessors in 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024) underlined the development of Brunel as a centre of research and teaching in banking economics, the latter being reflected in the introduction of the BSc in Banking and Finance to complement the long standing Banking and Finance MSc, both of which are proving highly popular with students. We also have instituted a Brunel Banking Research Group where we undertake research and policy work in fields such as macroprudential policy, bank competition and risk, securitisation and pension fund regulation.

The conference speakers (shown above) included senior officials from major central banks, John Fell from the European Central Bank, Olivier de Bandt from the Banque de France (who presented with Skander Maraoui) and Rhiannon Sowerbutts from the Bank of England. The presenters also included world-leading academics, that is Professor David Aikman from Kings College London and Fotios Pasiouras from the MBS School of Business, Montpelier and an expert from the financial services sector, Simon Brennan of Deloitte LLP. Presentations were also given by Brunel Professors of Banking and Finance Alper Kara and E Philip Davis. Sessions were chaired by Dr Wenke Zhang, Davis, Kara and Karim.

The conference was organised under four headings; Ageing, Housing and Financial Markets (Davis and Fell); Financial stability and regulatory structure (Aikman and Sowerbutts); Regulatory policies and their wider effects (Pasiouras and Brennan); and Climate risk and ESG (Kara and de Bandt/Maraoui).

The conference presentations addressed a rich range of topics, including the following:

The range of effects of population ageing on financial markets that have been highlighted in the economics and finance literature (Davis and Karim)
Seeking the optimal method for summarising results of a literature as applied to the effects of macroprudential policy on housing markets (Fell)
To guide financial stability policy, assessing impact of key thresholds or non-linearities in the financial system in the context of a model of GDP-at-Risk (Aikman)
Assessing whether Regulatory and Supervisory Independence (RSI) from political influence actually delivers a more stable banking sector. (Sowerbutts)
Considering the impact of macroprudential policies on the cost of equity of banking institutions, and the transmission mechanism of such effects (Pasiouras).
In light of the UK’s “competitiveness and growth” agenda, considering whether and in what way reducing the regulatory burden can support growth and competitiveness (Brennan)
Assessing the degree to which ESG ratings for individual firms differ, underlying factors and the impact of such divergence on performance (Kara)
Evaluating the impact of temperature rise on corporates and banks, and the underlying transmission mechanisms to the economy and the financial system (de Bandt and Maraoui)

A number of the papers, as well as the final overview session’s discussion raised further policy questions for banks, bank regulators and central banks as well as fields for further investigation by researchers. These included:

Projected demographic changes, financial stability and systemic risks.
Effects on economic growth of factors such as demographic shifts, burden of regulation, resilience of the financial sector, “overheating” of financial markets.
Lack of clear objective to financial stability policy when not in a time of crisis. In that context, difficulty of assessing society’s risk appetite.
How important is regulation as opposed to supervision in financial stability policy?
How the institutional framework can impact on the effectiveness of policy in the field of financial stability. What is the comparative importance of central-bank as opposed to regulatory independence?
Frequency of nonlinearities in financial stability that existing models do not always cope well with.
What factors should guide the choice of macro as opposed to micro analysis in assessing policy issues in regulation and stability? And comparative advantages of empirical as opposed to theoretical models.
Difficulty of measuring key concepts needed for the assessment of financial stability and the effectiveness of policy.
Risk of distortion of research results in order to achieve publication, that may mislead policymakers.
In that context, potential utility of meta-analysis and tools of AI and word search methodologies in seeking “truth”.
How the financial sector can cope with climate change, especially in a context where political “winds” may change.
The transmission mechanism from women on the board to better financial performance. How important in the case of banks?
Profitability of banks and its relation to costs of regulation – how large are they?
How does regulation impact on economic growth? Does excessive concern over regulatory costs leave the financial system vulnerable to systemic risks?
Urgent need to understand better the financial stability consequences of physical climate change and to have good data to measure it, including consistent ESG indicators.

Besides these overarching themes, many of the presenters went away also with helpful comments and suggestions for improving their papers or for future research on their topics. The online delegates were content also and several remained online for the whole day.

Links to the conference presentations are provided below – the reader is warmly encouraged to read them attentively!

Session 1: Ageing, Housing and Financial Markets Chair: Wenke Zhang (Brunel University)

E Philip Davis (Honorary Professor of Banking and Finance, Brunel University of London) and Dilruba Karim (Senior Lecturer, Brunel University of London), “Ageing and Financial Markets”

John Fell (Deputy Director General, Macroprudential Policy, European Central Bank), “House Price Booms and Policy Choices: Insights from a Meta-Regression Study”

Session 2: Financial stability and regulatory structure: Chair: E Philip Davis (Brunel University)

Rhiannon Sowerbutts (Senior Economist, Macroprudential Strategy and Support Division, Bank of England), “Does Regulatory and Supervisory Independence Affect Financial Stability?”

David Aikman (Professor of Finance and Director of the Qatar Centre for Global Banking and Finance, King’s Business School, King’s College London) “Financial (In)Stability Zones”

Session 3: Regulatory policies and their wider effects: Chair: Alper Kara (Brunel University)

Fotios Pasiouras (Professor of Banking and Finance, MBS School of Business), “Macroprudential policies and the cost of bank equity: International evidence”

Simon Brennan (Director, EMEA Centre for Regulatory Strategy, Deloitte LLP), “Reducing the regulatory burden to support competitiveness and growth: which changes matter most?”

Session 4: Climate risk and ESG: Chair: Dilly Karim (Brunel University)

Alper Kara (Professor of Banking and Finance, Brunel University of London), “ESG rating divergence: The role of data source and its implications”

Olivier de Bandt (Director of Research, Banque de France) and Skander Maraoui, (Paris-Est University (UPEC)), “The impact of temperature shocks on banks’ loan supply”.