Bank Hapoalim (LSE: BKHD; TASE: POLI) chairman Dan Dankner told the "Globes" 2007 Israel Business Conference today that regulation in Israel was holding the banking sector back. "It is unacceptable that the prime minister and cabinet ministers should avoid meeting economy leaders or key executives in the business sector because of the fear of "money and power", as we have been calling it in recent years," he said. "We have to simplify and consolidate our regulatory structures, so as to shorten the drawn-out and complex bureaucratic procedures that have been weighing the business sector down."
Dankner continued, "We have to realize that the state authorities and business sector are not adversaries, but that they should and must collaborate. I say unequivocally: Israel can be an investor's paradise but it is still a long way from realizing this potential.
"One striking example of this is the attitude to the Israeli banking sector. In progressive countries they realized that financial institutions could act as a catalyst for attracting business, and so they created a liberal, relaxed business environment for them with the aim of promoting competition, whose benefits will be enjoyed by the entire country."
"In our country, on the other hand, this potential faces the axe, in the name of competition. Israeli regulation regularly places barriers and limits that constrain the baking system. Some of this is done with the best of intentions, but a poor outcome, and the rest is sheer populism," Dankner added.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on December 10, 2007
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2007