European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said on Thursday he expects bank lending, a key impediment to growth in the euro zone at the moment, to pick up early next year.
The ECB is putting the euro zone’s 131 largest banks through a thorough balance sheet review to weed out soured loans and check whether they have valued assets correctly before it takes over as their new centralised supervisor in November.
Draghi said since the summer last year, banks that will come under its direct watch from November had strengthened their balance sheets by almost 203 billion euros, through capital hikes, bond issuances or retained earnings for instance.
The clean up will put banks in a better position to lend, which is important for the recovery in the euro zone that relies strongly on bank funding.
via CNBC
Content is for general information purposes only. It is not investment advice or a solution to buy or sell securities. Opinions are the authors; not necessarily that of OANDA Business Information & Services, Inc. or any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, officers or directors. If you would like to reproduce or redistribute any of the content found on MarketPulse, an award winning forex, commodities and global indices analysis and news site service produced by OANDA Business Information & Services, Inc., please access the RSS feed or contact us at info@marketpulse.com. Visit https://www.marketpulse.com/ to find out more about the beat of the global markets. © 2023 OANDA Business Information & Services Inc.