2023-07-22 09:26:02
Berlin (awp/afp) – The European Central Bank announced on Saturday that it wanted to monitor the liquidity situation of banks in the euro zone more frequently to reduce the risk of financial crises in the future.
“We have decided to ask banks, from September, to send us information on a weekly basis, in order to have more recent data and to better monitor liquidity developments,” said Andrea Enria, chairman of the Supervisory Board, the European banking supervisor part of the ECB.
“The idea is to send more frequently the information on the liquidity that the banks already send us monthly,” said clarified in an interview with the Italian economic daily Milano Finanza published on Saturday on the ECB website.
This data includes details such as the maturity of cash held in banks’ accounts, their counterparties and refinancing operations carried out with the ECB. This should make it possible in particular to better control the evolution of “the most liquid assets, such as” bank deposits, “added the supervisor.
This initiative comes as the bankruptcy of regional banks in the United States in March, then the failure of Credit Suisse, raised fears of new financial turbulence.
It responds to a recommendation made in June by the European Banking Authority, the EBA, the regulator which lays down the rules for the sector.
At the same time, the European Union adopted at the end of June new stricter rules imposed on banks in order to avoid a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis (calculation of the risks present in banks’ balance sheets, minimum capital requirements).
In this context, Andrea Enria called for greater cross-border consolidation of the European banking sector. “A more integrated market” of European banks, “would be advantageous because it would better deal with possible shocks”, he said.
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