Rome, April 1 – Italy is working on a “concrete” proposal for Euro bonds to help offset the economic impact of the coronavirus, or ‘coronabonds’, Economy Minister Roberto Gualtieri told the House on Wednesday. Gualtieri welcomed the European Commission’s “proposal to issue common bonds to support the unemployment subsidies of member States” during the crisis. He said this was an “innovation that Italy has backed for some time” and called it a “first step” in an EU response to the… (Continua a leggere)

Payout policy should support local and European economies in time of crisis, says EBA. Europe’s banking regulator has demanded that all EU lenders stop their planned dividend payments and share buybacks — stepping up its guidance in line with the latest call for a payout freeze during the coronavirus pandemic by the European Central Bank. In a series of statements issued late on Tuesday, the European Banking Authority said it now “urges all banks to refrain from dividends distribution or share… (Continua a leggere)

Dopo Unicredit, Mediolanum e Generali che hanno già annunciato la sospensione delle cedole, si definiranno nelle prossime ore le mosse degli altri istituti. Sia in Italia che in Europa Si definiranno nelle prossime ore le mosse delle banche italiane sul tema del dividendo. Da Intesa Sanpaolo a Ubi, da BancoBpm a Bper, tutti i Cda sono pre-allertati per discutere e prendere posizione rispetto alle raccomandazioni arrivate venerdì sera dalla Vigilanza Bce. Con una mossa mai vista prima, Francoforte ha chiesto a… (Continua a leggere)

The European Central Bank is asking banks to suspend dividend payments through October to preserve lending capacity during the coronavirus crisis, a call that comes about two weeks after a group of eight big U.S. banks suspended their own stock buybacks to conserve capital. The ECB, in a statement Friday, said the recommendation “concerns dividends for 2019 and 2020, at least until” October of this year. It said that its recommendation to forgo dividends was “to boost banks’ capacity to absorb losses… (Continua a leggere)

Banks should refrain from paying dividends or launching share buybacks in order to preserve capital and keep lending to an economy hit by the coronavirus pandemic, the European Banking Federation (EBF) has said. “For 2020 the EBF believes that listed banks should not accrue dividends or undertake share buybacks so as to maintain maximum capital preservation and bank boards will be deciding on dividend policy and any distribution amounts at year-end,” the EBF said in a letter on Thursday evening to… (Continua a leggere)

As more European countries go into lockdown to combat the coronavirus pandemic, analysis shows where the strains will hit the continent’s banking sector Europe’s banking sector is expected to be a “key piece of the puzzle” in the continent’s battle against the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus, according to Scope Ratings. The Berlin, Germany-based ratings agency said senior debt bail-ins such as those seen during the 2007-09 financial crisis were “extremely unlikely”, despite some banks having already issued profit warnings. More profit… (Continua a leggere)

It is commonly held wisdom that in every crisis there lies an opportunity. Financial crises are no exception. In the eurozone, we have seized the opportunity provided by the crises of 2008 and 2010, and made the banking sector a safer place – in Europe and elsewhere. A new, coordinated approach in Europe also makes responding to crises, such as the one sparked by the outbreak of Covid-19, much quicker and much more efficient than would otherwise have been the case. First,… (Continua a leggere)

European banks are under intense pressure as the coronavirus halts all major economies, at a time when these institutions were still struggling with the legacy issues of the 2008 financial crash. The region’s lenders have undergone a massive transformation since 2008 by increasing capital positions and complying with tougher regulations. They have, nonetheless, struggled to return to their pre-crisis market levels. The European banking index was still down by more than 50% from March 2008 to the start of this… (Continua a leggere)

Industries haven’t all been equal in the month since the stock market rout began, and the European banking sector has been hit particularly hard. European stock markets are down by about 35% on average since Feb. 19. European bank shares have declined by about 45%. Investors don’t seem to distinguish between banks within the euro zone—the largest of which are supervised by the European Central Bank—and banks outside. Both France’s Société Générale (ticker: GLE.France) and the United Kingdom’s Barclays (BCS) are down by about… (Continua a leggere)

FRANKFURT (BLOOMBERG) – European banks took US$130 billion made available by the US Federal Reserve on Wednesday, helping ease the funding stress from the coronavirus pandemic. Lenders from the euro zone borrowed the bulk of the money – US$112 billion in operations coordinated by the European Central Bank. That’s the biggest use of the crisis-era swap lines since the global financial meltdown more than a decade ago. UK lenders took US$15.5 billion via the Bank of England, and Swiss institutions took… (Continua a leggere)