The BoE and UK government have responded to the Covid-19 crisis with a broad range of measures. These were announced swiftly, but some have taken quite a while to implement, particularly when it comes to financial support for private sector companies. These measures share the feature of relying heavily on the country’s banking sector, which is in solid shape despite facing the same challenges as banks in other European countries. All this is taking place against the background of Brexit and the government’s refusal to extend the transition period on the basis that this would increase uncertainty for businesses and could reduce the flexibility they will need to react to the health crisis.
The exceptional measures taken by the US authorities to bolster the liquidity of companies and markets in response to the Covid-19 crisis have resulted in a significant expansion of bank balance sheets. Since the financial crisis of 2007-2008, regulators have tightened balance sheet constraints significantly. Fearing that leverage requirements could damage banks’ ability to finance the economy and support the smooth functioning of financial markets, these have temporarily been relaxed. However, the Federal Reserve is unlikely to undergo a slimming regime that will scale back bank balance sheets for a number of years (and almost certainly not before the end of the period of relaxation of requirements)
Lending momentum in the euro zone recovered strongly in March 2020, with an increase of 1.6% from a 0.4% fall in February. Against a background of negative GDP growth in the first quarter (-3.3% Q/Q-4 from +1.0% Q/Q-4 the fourth quarter of 2019), conditions in March were severely affected by the lockdown measures introduced by national governments over the month [...]
Credit impulse in the euro zone stabilised in December 2019 (up 0.3%, as in November) against a background of a slight slowing of real GDP growth in the fourth quarter (1.0% from 1.2% in the third quarter). Outstanding bank lending to the private sector maintained its pace of growth in December (up 3.7% year-on-year). For the second month in a row, growth in lending to NFCs was less than that in lending to consumers. The slowdown in growth in lending to NFCs (where the year-on-year figure fell from 3.8% in October to 3.2% in December) was due mainly to lower investment spending (in France, Germany and most particularly Spain). This was in part offset by strong growth in consumer loans (from 3.5% to 3.7%)
In September 2019, outstanding sight deposits collected by credit institutions remained particularly dynamic (+ 11.9% year-on-year) and amounted to more than EUR 1,106 bn. This change concerns all customers and especially non-financial corporations (NFCs). First contributors to the growth of total sight deposits each year since 2011, their share within the latter has increased significantly. Several explanations can be given. The low or negative interest rate environment weighs on the attractiveness of other investments compared to sight deposits. Moreover, it contributes to the expansion of NFCs’ bank credit flows, which have been relatively well correlated with their flow of sight deposits since the beginning of the decade
On 10 October 2019, US banking regulators increased the application thresholds for the capital and liquidity requirements imposed on large banks. Whilst the new rules do not change the prudential requirements for the eight biggest banking groups, they do reduce the burden for large regional banks. The number of banks subject to the Basel Liquidity Coverage Ratio (LCR) requirement will be reduced and the definition of core equity relaxed to some degree. In general terms, the rules as finalised over the past two months will significantly narrow the scope of application of Basel 3 in the USA. Given concern over lending trends in certain segments and the continued economic slowdown in the US, this relaxation of regulations catches attention.
For the first time since 2014, aggregated net income of the five largest Portuguese banking groups[1], which account for about 80% of the banking system’s consolidated total assets, was positive in 2018 (EUR 375 millions). Losses recorded in Portugal (EUR -14 millions) were more than offset by profits from international activities (EUR 389 millions).The assets located abroad of Portuguese banks have, on average since 2014, represented 13% of their total assets. In 2017, the simultaneous decreases in this proportion and the net income from international activities are, amongst other things, due to a valuation effect of assets accounted at their fair value
The Bank of England's (BoE) aggregate balance sheet statistics for the Monetary and Financial Institutions (MFIs) provide a macroeconomic picture of the UK banking system. They illustrate the contraction of bank balance sheets until December 2015 (-19% compared to January 2010). This was mainly the result of the decline in outstanding loans to the resident non-financial private sector, whose debt was returning to more sustainable levels. Non-resident claims and interbank transactions also contributed to the decline in bank balance sheets
At year-end 2018, auto loans outstanding peaked at US 1,274 billion in the United States. This is the third largest debt category for American households, behind mortgage loans (67%) and student loans (11%). At 9% of total loans outstanding, their weight has increased constantly since 2010. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York recently released unpublished data broken down by lending sector. In Q3 2018, non-bank finance companies originated 12% of loans outstanding, half of which were subprime loans*. These auto finance companies, which are generally highly leveraged, remain highly exposed to credit risk (only 17% of loans outstanding are securitized)
The Portuguese banking system’s non-performing loan ratio continued to decline, to 11.7% as of Q2 2018 (and 11.3% as of Q3 2018), after peaking at 17.9% as of Q2 2016. This 6.2 percentage points contraction in the NPL ratio is mainly due to a nearly 40% reduction in non-performing loans outstanding amount, compared to a 2.1% decline in total loans outstanding amount. According to the Bank of Portugal’s data, 42% of the decline in the NPL ratio is due to write-offs. Sales and securitisations accounted for 23% of the ratio’s decline. Nearly two thirds of the cleaning up of Portuguese bank balance sheets occurred via the removal of non-performing loans from the banking system
The European Parliament and Council have reached a political agreement on common minimum loss coverage for non-performing exposures. In the future, new exposures that become non-performing will have to be fully covered by provisions no later than nine years after their classification as such. The minimum coverage levels will apply at the earliest from two years after an exposure has been classified as non-performing. Compared to the calendar initially proposed, the compromise therefore allows an additional period before minimum coverage levels begin to be applied. Similarly, the calendar for full coverage of non-performing exposures has been extended