Looking beyond the short-term economic shock, the Covid-19 pandemic and the exceptional health protection measures introduced to contain the virus raise many questions as to the lasting consequences of the crisis. The issue of zombie firms, which is far from new, has taken on a whole new dimension, as their weight in developed economies has progressively increased since the 1980s. Massive public interventions to tackle the effects of the pandemic, whether by governments – debt moratoriums, cancellations of employer social security contributions, widespread use of short-time working schemes, etc. – or by central banks – increase and prolongation of asset purchases schemes – could result in keeping non-viable companies afloat, raising fears of a zombification of economies.
Due to the lengthening of the health crisis, the European Banking Authority decided on 2 December 2020 to reactivate its guidelines on legislative and non-legislative moratoria on loan repayments. This decision aims at easing credit instructions criteria for granting moratoria. Moratoria granted in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic before 31 March 2021 will not automatically be considered as a forbearance measure. However, such moratoria must have benefitted a sufficiently large set of borrowers and their granting must have been based on a criterion other than solvency. The beneficiaries of moratoria that aim at preventing a default will no longer automatically be considered in default
On 16 September, the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) for the euro zone announced the temporary exclusion of reserves with the Eurosystem from the calculation of leverage ratios at major banks. Similar relaxations had been introduced a few months earlier in the USA, Switzerland and the UK. The exceptional measures taken by public authorities to bolster liquidity have resulted in a significant expansion of banks’ balance sheets. Fearing that leverage requirements could hamper the transmission of monetary policy and affect banks’ abilities to lend to the economy, first regulators and then supervisors have temporarily relaxed such requirements
In response to the crisis triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic, in April the US Congress set up the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), a small business lending programme guaranteed by the Federal government with an overall budget of nearly USD 650 billion. Under certain conditions, the loans can be converted into subsidies within the limit of payroll costs, interest on mortgages, rent and utilities paid during the 24 weeks after the loan was granted. The loans will be partially or completely forgiven on condition that employment and wages are maintained by the end of the year. At 22 June, 4.6 million SME had borrowed more than USD 515 billion under the programme, virtually all of which was borrowed as early as mid-May
