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Will the asset quality review and stress tests conducted by the European Central Bank and the European Banking Authority mark a turning point in the eurozone’s crisis? Up to a point. They are an improvement on what has gone before. But they are not a complete fix for the banking sector, still less for the economy’s wider problems.
The optimistic assessment is that the ECB has at least done enough to mend the banking system. There are two things to be said for this judgment: first, the ECB has taken a close look at the quality of assets in the system; and, second, the “stresses” imposed in the tests are tough. They seem comparable to those imposed by the Federal Reserve on US banks. The ECB concluded that 25 institutions, nine of them Italian, would need to add a total of €25bn in capital. This number has already fallen to €13bn because of capital-raising undertaken this year.
Perhaps the most important possibility omitted by this assessment is that of sovereign default. This bears on a fundamental concern: risk-weighted capital requirements, on which the analysis is based, involve making judgments about the safety of different types of assets. This is especially problematic in the eurozone, where the lack of a unified fiscal backstop for banks means that national governments are responsible for rescuing troubled institutions. Moreover, the solvency of the eurozone’s highly indebted members is more doubtful than that of countries with their own currencies. Since a banking crisis would be even harder to deal with in the eurozone than elsewhere, it would be wise for its banks to have bigger capital buffers that stand a better chance of preventing one. This is particularly important when actual leverage is so much higher than the risk-weighted capital ratios suggest.
Full article on Financial Times (subscription required)
The examination is over. For more than a year the European Central Bank has been shining a light on the books of the eurozone’s banks; this weekend it reported its conclusions.
The balance sheets of 25 institutions were found wanting; the ECB concluded that they need an extra €25bn between them to be able to withstand a nasty economic surprise. Two crucial questions remain. Has enough at last been done to fix the European banking system? And will this on its own be enough to ward off the threat of deflation that is hanging over the eurozone?
The answer to the first question is “probably yes”. But the answer to the second is “certainly no”. The ECB has taken a necessary, but far from a sufficient, step to fix the low-growth, low-inflation condition that has become the norm in the European economy.