ECB

“Today, Jean Pierre Mustier, chief executive of Italian lender UniCredit, called for banks to stop complaining about negative rates.” – by Thomas Hale

“Another European Central Bank stimulus package looks set to keep eurozone interest rates negative for longer and tighten the squeeze on the region’s banks, heaping more pain on German lenders in particular.” – by Gareth Gore and Steve Slater

“With the ECB set to cut rates, the Swiss will have little choice but to go even deeper into negative territory. The SNB is a price-taker, not a price-maker.” – by Marcus Ashworth

Investor trepidation towards Europe in today’s markets is understandable.  Regional macro data remain anemic.  Europe continues to produce weak data, Euro-Area economic sentiment saw its worst losing streak in a decade and low interest rates are set to continue throughout the medium term.  Meanwhile, the Fed has raised rates nine times since December 2015, taking […]

We are nearly 20 years into the new millennium and it is an unrecognizable place compared to when it started.  Lehman is gone, Bear Stearns – gone, Merrill Lynch – acquired, Citigroup is a fraction of its former self.  Blockbuster, Toys R Us, Woolworths are all part of the history books now.  Europe, where we […]

ECB argues for the continuing value of central bank independence.

The euro zone’s era of massive excess liquidity, courtesy of the European Central Bank, is about to peak.  In a speech on Thursday, ECB Chief Economist Peter Praet presented a model that projects excess liquidity will peak at about 2 trillion euros around the end of this year and drop below 500 billion euros in […]

“As much as the global financial crisis has exposed weaknesses in the regulation and supervision of banks around the world, in the EU such weaknesses were exacerbated by fragmentation.” “Progress in completing the Banking Union – namely, first harmonising options and discretions, completing resolution, and laying the groundwork for the creation of an effective deposit […]