News | Latest Breaking News Stories & Headlines

ECB to test banks' resilience to geopolitical risk

The European Central Bank will test banks' resilience to geopolitical risk next year, telling them to come up with scenarios that would wipe out large chunks of their capital, chief ECB supervisor Claudia Buch said today.

Business • 15 Jul

The ECB said that euro zone banks still sit on almost €3 trillion of excess liquidity - created by the ECB over the past decade

Banks must get into habit of tapping ECB for cash - ECB

Euro zone banks need to get into the habit of tapping the European Central Banks for cash, preparing for the continued decline in excess liquidity in the banking system, two top ECB officials said in a blog post today.

Business • 18 Mar

Euro zone banks tightened firms' access to credit last quarter, a new ECB survey shows, reinforcing the case for more interest rate cuts as the economy slows

Euro zone banks tighten companies' access to credit: ECB

Euro zone banks tightened firms' access to credit last quarter and expect further tightening in the first three months of 2025, a European Central Bank survey showed today, reinforcing the case for more interest rate cuts as the economy slows.

Business • 28 Jan

New ECB research shows that demand for bank loans across the euro zone rose in the third quarter of this year

Euro zone banks see rebound in loan demand as rates fall

Demand for bank loans across the 20-nation euro zone rose in the third quarter and a further increase is expected in the final three months of the year, with household mortgages driving the expansion, a European Central Bank survey showed today.

Business • 15 Oct 24

Europe needs bigger banks to compete with US rivals

Europe needs bigger and stronger banks that can compete with their US and Chinese rivals, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said today, just as Italy's UniCredit was looking to possibly take over Germany's Commerzbank.

Business • 30 Sep 24

ECB Vice President Luis de Guindos said the European Central Bank is hoping for more cross-border bank consolidation

ECB hopes for more cross border bank consolidation

The European Central Bank is hoping for more cross-border bank consolidation to improve the valuation of lenders and efficiency in the sector, ECB Vice President Luis de Guindos told Portugal's Expresso in an interview.

Business • 20 Sep 24

ECB to wean banks off free cash at gentlest pace

The European Central Bank wants to wean banks off free cash but it will try to do so gently enough not to upset the financial system or lending, the result of its long-awaited Operational Framework Review showed today.

Business • 13 Mar 24

The ECB has been pushing banks for years to factor climate considerations into how they lend and assess risk

Most euro zone banks face risk from climate complacency

Most big banks in Europe are failing to adjust their business to the looming decarbonisation of the bloc's economy and thus face increased financial, reputational and legal risk, the European Central Bank said today.

Business • 23 Jan 24

The ECB's long-planned stress test will involve 109 of the bloc's biggest lenders

ECB cyber stress test won't affect capital requirements

The European Central Bank's cyber resilience stress test in the coming months will not affect bank-specific capital requirements but instead form part of a broader supervisory assessment, the ECB said in a statement today.

Business • 03 Jan 24

The ECB said it will keep its focus on credit and liquidity risks in 2024 for euro zone banks

ECB raises capital demands for 20 banks over bad loans

The European Central Bank said today it had raised capital requirements for 20 banks after judging they had not set aside enough cash to cover for loans that had gone unpaid, a key concern for supervisors at a time of high borrowing costs.

Business • 19 Dec 23

The ECB study looked into the risk of spillovers from so-called shadow banks to traditional lenders and vice versa

ECB warns of hit to top European banks

The euro zone's top banks may take a hit if their financial clients, such as funds, insurers and clearing houses, withdrew their deposits or otherwise ran into trouble, the European Central Bank has warned.

Business • 30 May 23

74% of banks reported falling demand for mortgages in the last quarter, with the biggest drops seen in Germany and France, the ECB said today

Euro zone banks tighten credit by most since 2011 - ECB

Euro zone banks have tightened companies' access to credit by the most since the 2011 debt crisis and expect to continue doing so as they turn more pessimistic on the economy amid rising borrowing costs, a European Central Bank survey showed today.

Business • 31 Jan 23

The ECB supervises more than 100 big banks in Europe

ECB to raise scrutiny of banks' credit risk

The European Central Bank will increase scrutiny over how banks manage credit risk and diversify funding, it said today while outlining its 2023 priorities as the euro zone heads into a likely recession and faces soaring borrowing costs.

Business • 12 Dec 22

Euro zone banks will have to up provisions - De Guindos

Banks in the euro zone will have to raise provisions to cope with the consequences of the economic slowdown due to the fallout from Russia's war in Ukraine, ECB Vice-president Luis De Guindos said today.

Business • 26 Sep 22

The ECB outlined its climate and environment risk-related expectations a year ago but banks appear to be slow in adapting them

Euro zone banks still missing ECB's climate risk goals

No big euro zone lender meets the European Central Bank's climate risk management goals, the ECB said today, just months before it is due to run the biggest climate stress test to date.

Business • 22 Nov 21

The ECB is putting pressures on the 114 banks on its watch to address risks from climate change via stress tests and requests for disclosure

Banks should be legally bound to climate plans - ECB

Euro zone banks should be legally bound to adopt plans that spell out how they will mitigate their exposure to climate-related risks over the next 30 years, European Central Bank board member Frank Elderson said today.

Business • 20 Oct 21

The ECB is worried that banks will turn off the money taps, forcing firms out of business and leaving the euro zone economy scarred

Euro zone banks to tighten access to credit in Q2 - ECB

Euro zone banks expect to tighten access to credit further in the second quarter, a European Central Bank lending survey showed today, as the bloc's pandemic-induced recession drags on and now threatens to disrupt the coming holiday season.

Business • 20 Apr 21

A five-year review by the ECB found that the euro zone's top banks had undercounted their risk-weighted assets by 12%

ECB finds top euro zone banks under-report risk

Large euro zone banks have been under-reporting their risky assets by €275 billion by using their own models to quantify potential losses, the European Central Bank said today.

Business • 19 Apr 21

The ECB did not name the nine banks in its annual review of lenders on its watch

Nine euro zone banks eat into capital buffers - ECB

Nine euro zone banks ate into their capital buffers last year, making use of leeway granted by supervisors to help them cope with the fallout of the coronavirus outbreak, the ECB said today.

Business • 28 Jan 21

Euro zone banks saw their bad loans fall in the third quarter of last year, thanks to unprecedented government guarantees and moratoria

Euro zone bank damage from pandemic limited so far

Euro zone banks have suffered some damage so far from the coronavirus pandemic, but that could change once official support measures are lifted, the European Central Bank's top supervisor said today.

Business • 15 Jan 21

The ECB has warned that 'vulnerabilities in the corporate sector are increasing as the pandemic evolves'

ECB warns against early withdrawal of Covid supports

The European Central Bank has said if governments withdraw financial support from households and companies too early, it could "set back the economic recovery".

Business • 25 Nov 20

The ECB has extended its recommendation to euro zone banks not to pay dividends until the end of the year

ECB extends dividend ban, capital relief for euro banks

The European Central Bank has extended a recommendation to euro zone banks not to pay dividends until the end of the year and allowed them to eat into their capital and liquidity buffers for even longer.

Business • 28 Jul 20

Euro zone banks are likely to tighten credit standards in the next three months, the European Central Bank has said

Euro zone banks expect to tighten credit access in Q3

Euro zone banks maintained relatively easy access to credit for firms in the second quarter with the backing of government guarantees, but they will likely tighten credit standards in the following three months, the European Central Bank said today.

Business • 14 Jul 20

BNP's results underperformed those of European rivals such as Barclays and UBS which both had a bumper quarter for trading

BNP Paribas profit falls 33% on expected loan losses

Profit at BNP Paribas fell by 33.1% in the first-quarter as the coronavirus crisis hit equity trading and prompted the euro zone's biggest bank to set aside more than half a billion euros in loan provisions.

Business • 05 May 20

Euro zone banks recorded a surge in emergency credit demand from corporate clients in the first three months of 2020

Euro zone firms rush for emergency loans - ECB survey

Euro zone banks recorded a surge in emergency credit demand from corporate clients in the first quarter and a further rise is likely as the coronavirus pandemic batters the economy, the European Central Bank said in a bank lending survey today.

Business • 28 Apr 20

Euro Zone Banks