In light of recent scandals involving Barclays' and HSBC's top brass, bankers were accused of bringing the world to its knees through rampant greed unchecked by western democracies.

"They are still driving their Bentleys and travelling first class and putting $10-20 million in their Swiss bank accounts every year while global economies suffer from massive job losses, people becoming homeless, increasing poverty and declining trade."

Both regional and global bankers were taken to task by Akhbar Al Khaleej editor-in-chief Anwar Abdulrahman, said a report in the Gulf Daily News (GDN), our sister publication.

He was a panellist at Germany-based Commerzbank forum on the so-called "New geopolitical order and the impact on markets.”

The forum, held at the Ritz-Carlton Bahrain Hotel and Spa, was attended by banking industry leaders from across the GCC and the world.

Abdulrahman accused the US of wanton disregard for the economic and social well-being of people from the Middle East, which has directly led to the emergence of Islamic State and Arab Spring devastation.

"We need to ask why western educated people fight, giving up their jobs, homes and families to go to conflict zones.

"The struggle globally today is based on need and necessity. Economies of nations decide the future and stability of nations.

Welfare

"It is unfortunate that less than one per cent of people in countries like the US, UK, South Korea and Japan control most of the national wealth.

However, this does not apply to the GCC where the wealth is distributed more equitably, in Saudi Arabia it is more than 20 per cent and in the other GCC countries it is between 10-15 per cent.

And welfare societies provide free education, medical services, subsidised essential services including food and cheap fuel.

The question, Abdulrahman said, is how one defined wealth.

"We consider people who have their own house, two cars in the garage, a boat maybe, can travel abroad twice a year and have savings of about two to three years of salary as rich."

He said in the western hemisphere, the number of wealthy people by these criteria was reducing every year.

The White House foreign policy has been disastrously led by a series of lame-duck presidents, he added.

"We have no choice but to change unscrupulous bankers with those not giving themselves absolute priority at the expense of the nation and having a moral obligation to treat people as human beings."

According to him, unlike the US, most places in the world including the Middle East had adopted a mixed economic model which was a blend of capitalism and socialism.

When asked by a panellist, Abdulrahman said Arabs traditionally had been allied with the US and Europe and currently did not have the same kind of relationship with Russia and China.

He did not see that changing in the near future.

Concurring with Abdulrahman, Commerzbank global head of financial institution sales Andrew Readinger, who was also on the panel, said concentration of wealth was definitely a cause for concern.

"The US needs to learn from its mistakes."

Commerzbank senior relationship manager for financial institutions Michael Gehrmann said what the world needed today was open communication between leaders.

According to him, a reason for this was that most of the politicians in the US and Europe were lawyers whereas in Asia and elsewhere they were engineers, doctors, and so on and therefore when they sat in front of each other and talked about economic ties, the approach was completely different.

Commerzbank global head of emerging markets research Simon Quijano-Evans said that a fresh approach was needed to deal with the changing economic dynamics.

Commerzbank managing director for emerging market sales globally David Tavadian, who moderated the discussion, said he believed that Brazil, Russia, India and China had similar values and ideas and more in common with each other than with US and Europe.

He felt it was only a matter of time before the US pulled out of the Middle East region as it would not have any economic or strategic interests here anymore.

Tavadian saw the US and Europe working closer together and if the proposed free trade agreement between the two were to materialise then they could just shut out the rest of the world.

In a presentation, Commerzbank emerging markets credit analyst Apostolos Bantis said he thought some regional banks may go for new perpetual bonds in anticipation of more challenging times.

"We expect more perpetual sukuk sales in the GCC as lenders seek to boost capital ratios amid rising loan growth and low borrowing costs.

"These instruments offer higher yields than conventional bonds and therefore attract good demand from investors," he said. - TradeArabia News Service