Optimal Level of Transparency and Disclosure of Information: The Dialectic of Transparency and disclosure vis-à-vis confidentiality in the Banking Sector

There has been growing interest in enhancing bank transparency, and this thesis starts from the premise that bank information is a fundamental tenet of the operations of banking. From the banks’ perspective, too much disclosure does not lead to the most expedient way of running its business. The duties, obligations or liabilities established for a bank matter. These duties or liabilities could either be actualised through regulatory obligations, these being securities markets regulation or bank prudential regulation, or private law and contractual obligations related to information held by a bank. Such obligations cause tension between the authorities that have a vested interest in the disclosure or non-disclosure of bank information. By placing banks at the centre of the arguments, this thesis establishes and analyses the informational challenges that banks face by identifying two concepts: The first and main one, which is the moot question of this thesis, is the public law challenge, which represents the rules and regulation compelling banks to disclose information while revealing an inherent tension between bank prudential and securities markets regulators. This concerns the natural dialectic between the maximum transparency philosophy of securities markets regulation and the need for a certain level of opacity residing in bank safety and soundness and financial and systemic stability-motivated prudential regulation. The second and auxiliary one is the private law challenge, which represents the tension between banks as profit maximisation-oriented commercial firms and banks as public interest-spurred financial and social institutions that makes banks essential information sources for the state.