考研英语阅读例题：First mover 先行者.doc

First mover 先行者[] The Economist SWISS banks ’ reputation for safety is not just a piece of marketing. Historically their regulators have added a“ Swiss finish ” to international capital rules that required their big banks to carry thicker safety buffers than firms in other countries. Supervisors judged that Swiss banks needed extra safeguards to calm the nerves of clients of their huge private-banking arms. Given the banks ’ size relative to Switzerland ’s economy, taxpayers needed more protection, too. The crisis has only made those arguments stronger. UBS suffered one of the worst loss rates of any large bank in the world. The government was forced to inject capital into it; many of its clients fled. To augment the new Basel 3 capital rules, a government-mittee of experts this week mended a new version of the Swiss finish for the two biggest firms, UBS and Credit Suisse. Whereas Basel 3 requires banks to carry core capital of 7% of risk-adjusted assets, the Swiss banks will need 10%. On top of this they will have to carry another nine percentage points ’ worth of contingent-capital, or“ CoCo ”, bonds that convert into equity if core-capital ratios fall too far. The proposals are almost certain to be adopted, and the banks will have ply by 2019. For the banks the immediate question is how easy it will be to issue the new instruments. Although a couple of CoCo bonds h