All those acquisitions will also erode capital.
In 1998, the Scottish National Trust warned chasing income would erode capital.
Big write-downs on these could erode capital, a shortage of which is already constraining lending and investment.
That risks driving down asset prices, forcing lots of banks to mark down equivalent assets and erode capital.
Earlier this month, Standard & Poor's lowered Zurich Financial's credit rating to AA-, because of concerns about flagging earnings, eroding capital and inconsistent management.
LONDON, June 25 (Reuters) - Swiss bank Credit Suisse plans to cut up to one-third of senior employees in its European investment banking department, three sources familiar with the matter said, as a weak economy and tighter regulation continue to erode capital raising and advisory activities.
The world has been captured by the high stakes drama of Wall Street's bad dream, and the cascading reports of bad news on companies, eroding capital markets, the legacy of greed, big debts and mounting foreclosures, and the threat of our global financial system slipping into panic.
Although interest rates have risen (another sign of recession), they haven't risen enough to provide sufficient income, especially on capital eroded by capital gains taxes.
Never mind that the paper losses in these roughly $90 billion in positions had eroded his capital to just $600 million from $4.8 billion at the start of 1998.
Making matters worse, Japanese banks count a part of their huge equity portfolios as capital, so the slump in the stock market -- 61percentt in the main stock index, the Nikkei 225, over the last three years -- has eroded their capital to the point that many of them are near the legally required minimum.
Many European lenders like ING have been forced to turn to state help as write-downs on credit-related assets eroded their capital position.
