Banks' off balance sheet vehicles to be exposed

Bankers have admitted that serious consideration needs to be given to bring off balance sheet vehicles out of the shadows following massive sub-prime writedowns.

At the Treasury committee’s investigation into Northern Rock last week, the bankers made the admissions about the off balance sheet structures.

Gerald Corrigan of Goldman Sachs, William Mills of Citigroup, Deutsche Bank’s Lord Aldington and Jeremy Palmer of UBS all conceded that serious thought needed to be given as to how and where the vehicles were accounted for.

Treasury committee member John Thurso asked whether banks needed to take ‘a long hard look at off balance sheet vehicles’ and provide more rigour to give outside observers a proper view of a company’s worth.

‘Clearly, the answer is yes,’ said Mills, whose group chief executive Charles Prince lost his job over the sub-prime losses. Palmer agreed: ‘I think it’s already happening.’

Off balance sheet structures may have added to the uncertainty banks may have faced in lending to each other, in hiding what issues different banks had.