Aberdeen: Kommentar zu den Ergebnissen des Stresstests der EZB

Am 26. Oktober werden die offiziellen Ergebnisse für alle rund 130 Teilnehmer des Stresstests der Europäischen Zentralbank (EZB) vorgestellt. Dazu ein Kommentar von Laurent Frings, Co-Head EMEA Credit Research bei Aberdeen Asset Management:

„Der Stresstest sollte sich positiv auf den europäischen Bankensektor auswirken. Wahrscheinlich werden alle großen systemrelevanten Banken bestehen, was im Vergleich zu früheren Tests eine viel schwierigere Übung ist. Zwar werden ein paar unbedeutendere Banken voraussichtlich durchfallen, aber den meisten betroffenen Banken ist dies bekannt und sie haben das vergangene Jahr vermutlich dazu genutzt, die Probleme zu lösen, welche die Tests aufdecken. Dennoch können die Stresstests nicht die umfassenderen und strukturellen Probleme überspielen, mit denen sich die europäischen Banken konfrontiert sehen. Es gibt immer noch viele Themen, die Bankenchefs nachts nicht schlafen lassen. Dazu gehören der düstere Ausblick für die europäischen Volkswirtschaften, geoplitische Risiken oder die niedrige strukturelle Profitabilität der meisten Banken.“

Lesen Sie auch den ausführlichen Kommentar von Laurent Frings, Co-Head EMEA Credit Research bei Aberdeen Asset Management auf Englisch:

European Central Bank President Mario Draghi is facing a number of unenviable balancing acts. He has to counteract the pressure of conducting rigorous stress tests on the Eurozone banks – sufficiently harsh that investors view them as credible and worthy of instilling their confidence – with encouraging those same banks to lend to the real economy in order to spur economic growth. That is a fine equilibrium.

The stress tests should be positive for the European banking sector though. Most of the region’s banks will pass. The ECB has kept banks informed about how they are performing during the tests. This means that any that fail (probably on the periphery) have spent the past few months taking remedial action. This is a bit like a teacher telling his students their mock exam results so he can boast to the head teacher that they are better prepared when the final exam comes. It will be a compromise too far for some. But the rigour of the overall process should restore some investors’ faith in the ECB after the last two lacklustre efforts at stress testing.

It is not Draghi’s only balancing act. He is also treading a line between the threat of deflation on one side and trying to get Eurozone states to decide exactly what to do about it. Draghi is facing widespread calls to start full-blown sovereign quantitative easing (QE) but he is struggling to convince the Bundesbank to back it. The ECB has to convince the Bundesbank while publicly and privately coercing the likes of Italy and Greece to undertaken the structural reforms demanded by the Germans in return for their backing of QE. Meanwhile deflation threatens to burn the tightrope from under Draghi.

The tests success cannot paper over the wider and structural issues that the region’s banks face either. There is still plenty to keep bank chiefs up at night, whether that is the dire outlook for Europe’s economies, geo-political risks or the low structural profitability of most of the banks. They have swapped the prospect of the Euro’s collapse two years ago with mere deflation and economic stagnation. In hindsight perhaps it would have been wise for the ECB to test the impact of widespread deflation on the banks too.

The pressure to commission sovereign QE is becoming immense. But Draghi also realises that QE is his last bargaining chip with governments – he is rightly concerned that politicians will rely on the central bank to solve their problems, and structural reforms that the currency bloc badly needs will be sidelined.

Given the competing and conflicting forces bearing down upon Mr Draghi his tightrope walking abilities so far have been remarkably composed. The rest of his journey is unlikely to be wobble-free.

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