U.S. policymakers continue their discussion about whether to raise America's debt ceiling above its current level of $14.3 trillion. Standard & Poor's has observed that any failure to raise the debt ceiling would cause significant and long-lasting financial and economic disruptions. In this CreditMatters TV interview, Paul Coughlin, Standard & Poor's executive managing director, discusses our views on the potential impact on the U.S. economy and the financial markets if the debt cap issue is not resolved in a timely manner.

Nicholas Dunbar, author of The Devil's Derivatives: The Untold Story of the Slick Traders and Hapless Regulators Who Almost Blew Up Wall Street ... and Are Ready to Do It Again.

A significant market segment is emerging as a result of the financial crisis. According to a recent survey conducted by the Deloitte Center for Financial Services, 22 percent of Americans with bank accounts experienced a serious negative credit situation during the last two years, and 11 percent were first-time defaulters - consumers who had never fallen into delinquency before.

Ben Knieff, who oversees fraud prevention strategy for NICE Actimize, says most small businesses don't understand online fraud risks, but they are willing to work with banks to mitigate losses. That's just one of the takeaways, Knieff says, from a recent survey of small businesses commissioned by NICE Actimize. According to the survey, which included responses from 315 small to medium-sized U.S. commercial customers, shows that beyond the prevention of ACH fraud, merely taking steps to reduce fraud improves the overall relationship between financial institutions and their commercial customers.

French banks continue to post adequate results and benefit from sound asset quality. However, they will continue to operate in a constraining playing field featuring low domestic economic growth, uncertain capital markets, and stricter regulations. The tighter regulatory regime should prompt banks to bolster their capital. In this CreditMatters TV video, Standard & Poor's Director Elisabeth Grandin takes an in-depth look at the situation.

The risks of a double-dip recession may have receded, but inflation is hogging the headlines again. Asian central banks are about to face another challenging year in 2011, responding to inflation and struggling to deal with capital inflows.

En este segmento de CreditMatters TV, Joydeep Mukherji, senior director, y Lisa Schineller, director, ambos de Calificaciones Soberanas para América Latina, revisan la situación actual de la calidad crediticia en la región, donde Standard & Poor's tiene calificaciones de grado de inversión para cinco países. Asimismo, nos hablan de los retos que enfrentan Brasil y México.

The economic downturn forced many financial institutions to face serious questions about their debt portfolios. While tackling significant loan challenges, some of these institutions have also had to deal with the added pressures of new industry regulations and investor expectations.

Recently issued, S&P Indices' Credit Default Swap Indices Annual Report analyzes the CDS market in 2010, as measured by the S&P CDS Indices. Listen to Mike Kondas, S&P Fixed Income Indices Analyst and report contributor, discuss key highlights from the paper and provide a birds-eye view of the CDS market over the past year.

CeCe Morken, President of Intuit Financial Services, discusses how the banking industry has evolved rapidly over the past decade. She also highlights how regulatory and economic requirements, more non-bank competitors, disruption of the established business model, and a dramatic shift in customer behaviors and mindset will continue to fuel change in the banking industry.

In this episode, Karl Debenham shares his views on the benefits and implications of the convergence of GAAP and IFRS.

In this episode, Matt King discusses how recent regulation affects credit investors and markets, noting that these are palliatives that are overshadowed by huge debt accumulation.

The biggest financial crisis since the Second World War created difficulties for banks all over the world, some of which were only rescued from bankruptcy through state intervention. The following short video shows the most promising way of protecting taxpayers from financial crises in the future.

The podcast "EPC calls on EU lawmakers to set end dates for migration to SEPA Credit Transfer and SEPA Direct Debit" sums up the latest developments related to the progress of the SEPA roll-out and stresses the need to set clear deadlines through EU Regulation for the replacement of existing national euro credit transfer and euro direct debit schemes by the SEPA payment schemes.

While it is impossible to directly access spot volatility, futures and futures-based indices can provide broad access to what has been dubbed the "investor fear gauge". The term structure of volatility has a profound impact on index characteristics and is key to efficient usage of these instruments.

Almost all structured finance transactions depend on counterparties to help them meet their payment obligations. In the past few years, major financial institutions that served as counterparties in a number of securitizations became insolvent. These experiences, along with the evolving characteristics of the world's financial system, have led to a reassessment of counterparty risk by market participants. In this CreditMatters TV segment, Andrew South, Standard & Poor's Head of European Structured Finance Research, discusses some of the risks, drawing on recent case studies.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) recently proposed adjusting its standards for how companies should account for and report their financial instruments, hedging activities, and derivatives instruments. In this CreditMatters TV segment, Standard & Poor's Senior Director Joyce Joseph discusses our responses to the proposal. Topics include fair value, credit impairment, hedge accounting, and how FASB's financial instrument proposal differs from the International Accounting Standards Board's existing and proposed standards.

Mientras que la innovación en los negocios es generalmente considerada como algo bueno, en el ámbito financiero ha sido objeto de críticas severas ya que las innovaciones difíciles de comprender tales como derivados de CDOs y CDSs fueron responsabilizados en gran medida por la crisis financiera. Hablando aquí con Gillian Tett del Financial Times en el World Business Forum, Paul Krugman describe cómo él considera que la innovación financiera debería ser gestionada.

Simon Johnson, a former chief economist for the International Monetary Fund and author of 13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown, says the recently passed Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Act does little to prevent the biggest financial risk of our time -- banks that are becoming "too big to save," either because potential losses could overwhelm government resources, or the public will refuse to sanction another large bailout.