The people managing central banks' reserves are not as concerned by that question as their private-sector colleagues are, because they do not have to make a profit.
It is also boosting markets thanks to hefty share-buying by trust banks managing public money.
So, how are banks managing to rake in profits as if 2008 never happened?
He worked full time selling property and managing property for banks.
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Mike Mayo, managing director of the banks group at CLSA, said that his peers need to understand that good ethics is good business, even though adhering to good ethics may take more effort.
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The underlying message: Private banks should be managing assets, not laundering them.
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, on Capitol Hill Tuesday to promote his plan to exorcise excessive risk-taking from the banking system, says one of the biggest persistent problems is the inherent conflicts banks have between managing their own interests and managing those of their clients.
Meanwhile, Ben Bernanke, chairman of America's Federal Reserve, used a speech at the Bank of Japan to insist that central banks work better at managing the economy if left free from political influence.
One way to break this link would be to allow the bailout funds to lend directly to the banks as IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde suggested Thursday.
Small properties "are much less attractive to the banks, especially larger banks, " says Matthew Anderson, managing director at Trepp.
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Historically, banks have not been very good at managing either of these risks, which is why there have been so many banking crises in America, and elsewhere, over the years.
The cost to the Indian companies, which do everything from running call centers to managing the massive amounts of transactional data generated by banks, could run to several hundred million dollars in lost profits.
Until then, most banks will stay better at taking risks than managing them.
Banks are lagging, said Vincent Oliva, managing vice president of Gartner Research, recalling a conference his firm held in Orlando a year ago.
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But when the law is changed this summer to allow banks and brokers to sell investment trusts, managing people's assets promises to be a hugely profitable business.
Mr. Thadani, who left India at 22 and made his fortune managing private-equity investments, said he uses three private banks and has had to disappoint a host of others who have come knocking.
More recent ideas include managing distressed power stations and buying delinquent credit-card debts from banks.
The banks make several billion dollars' worth of profits off managing these student loans, which would be okay except for the fact that these loans are guaranteed by the federal government.
Peter McNamara, former head of personal banking at Lloyds TSB and managing director of the Alliance and Leicester, said that restructuring the banks in the current climate could in fact prove counter productive.
Commercial real estate prices need to rise to help smaller banks stay off the failed bank list, says Mickey Cargile, managing partner at Cargile Investments.
Anyone who has been short China banks in that period has been losing money unless they were actively managing those positions and getting their timing right.
While banks offer ETFs to their clients, they are also responsible for managing the trading flows that occur when underlying portfolios are hedged and rebalanced (so that prices match the underlying assets).
And like a triumphant wearer of flares that have at last come back in fashion, the RBI's wide remit minting coins, managing the exchange rate, acting as banker for the government, and supervising banks and the bond market is now seen as a template.
Investment banks are spending tens of millions of dollars on building sophisticated systems for managing client collateral.
"You came to see they actually did what they said, " says Stephen White, managing director of iaction, an architectural firm that initially built Pudong offices for international banks but now sees mostly Chinese take-up.
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Franklin Guidone, 37, a former managing director at a Dallas corporate restructuring firm, managed to win a reprieve from the banks by promising to sell off parts of the company, including Terraillon.
Gijsbert Groenewegen, managing partner of Silver Arrow Capital Management, said the news about Germany seeking to protect its banks shows how murky the European debt situation is, which makes investors seek the transparency of hard assets like gold and silver.
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That is not unusual for banks, which generally seem to be run by people who are excellent bankers but very poor at managing stuff.
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"The operating environment for banks in the UK is extremely challenging and will remain so for some time, " HSBC UK managing director Paul Thurston said in the statement.
Well, it is yet another promotion for a Goldman Sachs alumnus (the two most important central banks in Europe, the ECB and the Bank of England, will be run by former Goldman managing directors).
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