non-performing loans

More Action Needed on European Bank Profitability

IMFBlog2019-03-25T10:16:28-04:00August 30, 2017|

By John Caparusso, Rohit Goel and Will Kerry

August 30, 2017

Versions in Español (Spanish), Deutsche (German), Français (French)

A woman withdraws money from an automated teller machine in Italy: Some European banks have too many branches relative to assets (photo: Martin Moxter imageBROKER/Newscom)

European banking has made considerable progress in the past few years: Banks have built up capital, regulation is stronger and supervision has been enhanced. But profitability remains weak, posing risks for financial stability.

In a sample of more than 170 large European lenders with combined assets of $35 trillion, roughly half generated a weak return on equity in 2016, and banks representing only 15 percent of assets generated a healthy return on equity, defined as more than 10 percent. Weak profitability is also shown in a low return on assets for domestic banks in many European countries. The drivers of these weak returns reflect varying combinations of low income, high costs, or provisions needed to build buffers against non-performing assets.

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Warning Signs as Global Financial Risks Increase

IMFBlog2019-03-27T10:13:21-04:00April 13, 2016|

By José Viñals

Versions in عربي (Arabic), 中文 (Chinese), Français (French), 日本語 (Japanese), Русский (Russian), and Español (Spanish)

Over the last six months, global financial stability risks increased as a result of the following developments:

First, macroeconomic risks have risen, reflecting a weaker and more uncertain outlook for growth and inflation, and more subdued sentiment. These risks were highlighted yesterday at the World Economic Outlook press conference.

Second, falling commodity prices and concerns about China’s economy have put pressure on emerging markets and advanced economy credit markets.

Finally, confidence in policy traction has slipped, amid concerns about the ability of overburdened monetary policies to offset the impact of higher economic and political risks.

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Reviving Credit in the Euro Area

IMFBlog2019-03-27T14:03:21-04:00November 23, 2015|

by Jean Portier and Luca Sanfilippo

A stock in excess of €900 billion of nonperforming loans continue to clutter the European banking system, impeding economic growth. This issue remains a key challenge for policy makers. As we show in our latest Global Financial Stability Report, part of the solution to address this legacy is an upgrade in legal systems. Current inefficiencies—long foreclosure times and insolvency procedures—are a reason for the gap between the value of loans on bank balance sheets and the price investors are willing to pay. A reliable legal environment and an efficient judicial system maximize the value of nonperforming loans (NPLs), reduce the value gap and give banks greater incentive to get NPLs off the books. Our analysis, using time to foreclose as a proxy for effective insolvency regimes, shows there is a large upside for new lending capacity in the euro area (Chart 1).

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A Strategy for Resolving Europe’s Problem Loans

IMFBlog2019-03-27T15:07:47-04:00September 24, 2015|

By Shekhar Aiyar and Anna Ilyina

Problem loans are clogging the arteries of Europe’s banking system. The global financial crisis and subsequent recession have left businesses and households in many countries with debts that they cannot repay. Nonperforming loans as a share of total loans in the EU have more than doubled since 2009, reaching €1 trillion—over 9 percent of the region’s GDP—by end-2014. These loans are particularly high in the southern part of the euro area, as well as in several Eastern and Southeastern European countries. Only a handful of countries have managed to lower their nonperforming loan ratio to below its post-crisis peak.

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Making Small Beautiful Again: The Challenge of SME Problem Loans in Europe

IMFBlog2017-04-14T01:44:57-04:00March 31, 2015|

By Yan Liu, Kenneth Kang, Dermot Monaghan, and Wolfgang Bergthaler

Six years after the global financial crisis, Europe continues to be weighed down by high levels of corporate debt and millions of nonperforming loans. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) bear a disproportionately heavy burden. Their nonperforming loan ratios are on average more than double those of their larger corporate cousins. This is worrisome. SMEs are the lifeblood of the European economy, comprising 99 percent of all businesses and employing nearly two of every three workers in Europe. Given the importance of smaller businesses to the economy, addressing their problem loans could lay the foundation for a more robust and sustainable economic recovery.

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Taking Away the Punch Bowl: Lessons from the Booms and Busts in Emerging Europe

IMFBlog2017-04-15T14:03:55-04:00September 10, 2012|

By Bas B. Bakker and Christoph Klingen

With all eyes on the euro area, it is easy to forget that only a few years ago the emerging economies of Europe, from the Baltic to the Black Sea, went through a deep economic and financial crisis. This crisis is the topic of a new book that we will introduce to the public this week in Bucharest, London, and Vienna.

One lesson is that your best chance to prevent deep crises is forcefully addressing booms before they get out of hand. Another is that even crises that look abysmal can be contained and overcome— policies to adjust the economy and international financial support do work.

In the half decade leading up to the crisis, easy global financial conditions, confidence in a rapid catch-up with western living standards, and initially underdeveloped financial sectors spawned a tremendous domestic demand boom in the region. Western banking groups bankrolled the bonanza, providing their eastern subsidiaries with the funds to extend the loans that fueled the domestic boom. […]

World Faces Weak Economic Recovery

IMFBlog2017-04-15T14:04:55-04:00July 16, 2012|

The global recovery continues, but the recovery is weak; indeed a bit weaker than we forecast in April, says IMF Chief Economist Olivier Blanchard. In the Euro zone, growth is close to zero, reflecting positive but low growth in the core countries, and negative growth in most periphery countries. In the United States, growth is positive, but too low to make a serious dent to unemployment. Growth has also slowed in major emerging economies, from China to India and Brazil.

Lost & Found in Eastern Europe: Replacing Funding by Western Europe’s Banks

IMFBlog2017-04-15T14:07:03-04:00June 13, 2012|

There is little doubt the era of generous funding from Western Europe's banks to their subsidiaries in the East is over, but this doens't have to translate into a reduction of bank credit in the emerging economies of Europe. The IMF's latest analysis shows an increase in local deposits in most countries of the region has offset the withdrawal of funding from Western Europe.