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Europe eases rules to price toxic assets
15.10.08
Brussels today rushed through new accounting rules to help many of Europe's biggest banks avoid reporting yet more huge losses and writedowns in their third-quarter figures.
The EU's accountancy regulators voted to ease up on so-called "fair value" rule which have been forcing banks to mark to market (value asset-backed securities at current market prices).
The banks had argued this was unfair in many cases because the only prices being made were by distressed sellers. Now they will be allowed to move toxic assets into a "held to maturity" portfolio so they will be priced only when they come to the end of their life.
