highhopes (Banking info from Eagle1): PTR 8/14/11 ON ANOTHER SITE

highhopes (Banking info from Eagle1): PTR 8/14/11 ON ANOTHER SITE


From Eagle 1 at Frankly speaking;

Good Afternoon, Family:

I’ve had this discussion with Frank and Delta before on one of the CC’s, but because of my background in international banking let me explain once again for the sake of those who are not aware of this.

There is a good and logical reason why you (normally) don’t see activity on Monday or Friday in international banks or in any banking transaction or trade with international consequences. Let’s go back to when I was President of Union Bond & Trust Company in Anchorage, Alaska.

I conducted business with banks and traders in HongKong and Shanghai, in Tokyo, in Zürich, London, Paris, Brussels, Auckland, Sydney, Perth, etc., etc. Can’t tell you how many times my phone rang at 2:00 or 3:00 AM and a banker from Credit Suisse was on the phone, or at 11:00 PM and a banker at HongKong-Shanghai Bank was calling. Before time zones were consolidated in the U.S. some 30-plus years ago, we had five different time zones in Alaska alone. (Alaska is 3400 miles wide, so you will understand!) Even with consolidation, there is a four-hour time difference between Anchorage and New York. That’s half a day, folks! And that’s just in the U.S. If I called someone at Barclay’s in London on Monday morning at 10:00 AM, it was already 9:00 PM in London. Thus any Monday business in Anchorage with London had to be conducted on Tuesday morning when their offices opened.

Try the opposite extreme! Suppose I had business with HongKong-Shanghai Bank in HongKong, and it was 2:00 PM on Thursday in Anchorage. It was already 8:00 AM on Friday in HongKong. Had in been in HongKong, the reverse would be true. Thus, because of the time-zone differences around the world, international bankers have agreed universally that any transactions or trades between international banks would only occur on Tuesdays through Thursdays.

I often scheduled large tranches of money between banks, and we agreed that in order to avoid heavy international scrutiny, we would limit international transfers to $250 Million per transaction per day. (We could have done more and did so under limited circumstances, but this was an easy way to do business.) I often did transactions totaling into the tens and hundreds of billions of dollars, but they were still broken down into $250 Million transfers per day. Thus we deliberately limited ourselves to transferring $750 Million per week per transaction — Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday — even if the total transaction were to exceed many billions of dollars. Under certain circumstances and time zones with parameters set up well in advance we transferred up to a billion dollars per week.

Family, this was more than two decades ago, and even though the limits and dollar amounts have changed throughout the years, banks still stick to Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday for any major trade, currency exchange, currency revaluation, or international funds transfer. Its just the nature of how things are and have been conducted in our business world.

It wouldn’t surprise me at all to see some changes take place in these practices in the years to come as the rest of the world becomes better connected electronically (and you all have seen or at least heard about all the pinging between CBI and banks around the world as they have been preparing for the RV).

Maybe this explanation will help everyone better understand the philosophy of the Tuesday – Thursday window for the RV. It doesn’t mean that we couldn’t see an announcement on a Friday or Sunday, but no actual cashing in will likely begin until the Tuesday – Thursday window. That is, unless there are a lot of changes taking place I haven’t heard about! (Smile.)

Blessings on you!