Ni na voljo v slovenščini.
Benjamin Klaus
- 21 May 2025
- FINANCIAL STABILITY REVIEW - BOXFinancial Stability Review Issue 1, 2025Details
- Abstract
- In recent years, the intertwining of geopolitical tensions and cyber threats has become increasingly pronounced, with state-sponsored cyberattacks playing an increasingly important role in the perpetration of hybrid conflicts. This phenomenon is primarily driven by a small number of countries, often characterised as authoritarian, which use their cyber capabilities to further national interests. These cyberattacks frequently target critical infrastructures and state institutions, focusing predominantly on data theft, sabotage and influence campaigns. The threat of cyberattacks to financial stability is significant, given the growing digitalisation and interconnectedness within the financial system. Cyberattacks can disrupt essential financial services, posing systemic risks through operational, financial and confidence channels. Increasing dependency on third-party providers amplifies these vulnerabilities. In times of heightened geopolitical tension, the risk of cyberattacks aimed at causing maximum disruption is elevated. It is therefore imperative for authorities and financial institutions to prioritise cybersecurity, develop resilience and enhance cooperation to effectively mitigate such risks.
- JEL Code
- F51 : International Economics→International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy→International Conflicts, Negotiations, Sanctions
F52 : International Economics→International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy→National Security, Economic Nationalism
- 21 May 2025
- FINANCIAL STABILITY REVIEW - ARTICLEFinancial Stability Review Issue 1, 2025Details
- Abstract
- The number of older people in the EU has increased markedly in recent decades and is projected to go on rising. This trend may pose challenges to financial stability given the adjustments needed in both the real economy and the financial sector to adapt to the demands of an ageing society. Building on the extensive body of literature examining the impact of population ageing on the real economy, this special feature investigates the channels through which population ageing could elevate financial stability concerns in the financial and non-financial sectors, bearing in mind possible interdependencies across sectors. Comprehensive policy actions appear warranted to meet the challenges posed by an ageing population to financial stability. These can range from boosting productivity growth and labour force participation rates to ensuring the sustainability of pension systems by increasing market-based retirement savings, also in the context of the developing capital markets union.
- JEL Code
- D14 : Microeconomics→Household Behavior and Family Economics→Household Saving; Personal Finance
E61 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook→Policy Objectives, Policy Designs and Consistency, Policy Coordination
G21 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Banks, Depository Institutions, Micro Finance Institutions, Mortgages
G22 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Insurance, Insurance Companies, Actuarial Studies
G23 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Non-bank Financial Institutions, Financial Instruments, Institutional Investors
H55 : Public Economics→National Government Expenditures and Related Policies→Social Security and Public Pensions
J14 : Labor and Demographic Economics→Demographic Economics→Economics of the Elderly, Economics of the Handicapped, Non-Labor Market Discrimination
- 20 November 2024
- FINANCIAL STABILITY REVIEW - BOXFinancial Stability Review Issue 2, 2024Details
- Abstract
- This box examines the role of euro area banks in the intermediation of US dollar liquidity and maps the global structure of funding markets and their evolution. Euro area banks have significantly increased their involvement in US dollar repo and FX swap markets, particularly since the onset of the monetary policy tightening cycle in 2022. This increased intermediation exposes euro area banks and their counterparties to potential liquidity risks, especially during periods of market stress. The short-term nature of these markets, combined with high market concentration and the off-balance-sheet nature of FX swaps, can amplify the transmission of shocks. Central bank swap lines are crucial for providing dollar liquidity and mitigating these financial stability risks during times of stress.
- JEL Code
- G15 : Financial Economics→General Financial Markets→International Financial Markets
F31 : International Economics→International Finance→Foreign Exchange
G21 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Banks, Depository Institutions, Micro Finance Institutions, Mortgages
G23 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Non-bank Financial Institutions, Financial Instruments, Institutional Investors
- 20 November 2024
- FINANCIAL STABILITY REVIEW - ARTICLEFinancial Stability Review Issue 2, 2024Details
- Abstract
- This edition of the ECB’s Financial Stability Review (FSR) marks the 20th anniversary of its inaugural publication. The FSR was originally launched to help in preventing financial crises, and this special feature draws lessons from two decades of experience in identifying, analysing anc risks via this publication. Although risk analysis and risk communication are distinct processes, the special feature emphasises that they are inextricably intertwined in a seamless cycle where each informs and enhances the other. Effective risk identification is founded on the ability to combine structured, data-driven assessments with qualitative insights and expert judgement. Such an approach requires a comprehensive and adaptive framework that continuously integrates broad reviews of indicators with focused analyses on emerging risks. Early identification of vulnerabilities enables timely intervention, but the complex, non-linear way that the financial system functions means that flexibility remains essential. Clear and transparent communication of systemic risks supports this analytical process by shaping expectations and enhancing market discipline, creating a feedback loop that strengthens both policy response and risk awareness. However, central banks face the challenge of balancing communication frequency and depth in order to avoid false alarms while at the same time maintaining credibility. As the ECB’s FSR has evolved, it has sought to become more accessible and data-driven, while utilising diverse media channels to broaden its audience. Experience confirms that targeted, proactive communication reinforces financial stability by aligning policymakers and markets, underscoring the symbiotic relationship between risk analysis and effective communication in maintaining financial system resilience.
- JEL Code
- D81 : Microeconomics→Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty→Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
E58 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Central Banks and Their Policies
G01 : Financial Economics→General→Financial Crises
- 22 November 2023
- FINANCIAL STABILITY REVIEW - ARTICLEFinancial Stability Review Issue 2, 2023Details
- Abstract
- This special feature builds on the concept of maturity gap as a metric of banks’ maturity mismatch to shed light on how banks’ engagement in maturity transformation differs across euro area countries and bank types. Banks can mitigate the interest rate risk stemming from their maturity mismatch by using derivatives for hedging purposes. Euro area banks increased their positions in interest rate derivatives over the last two years in anticipation of the start of monetary policy normalisation. Significant institutions rely more than cooperative and savings banks on interest rate derivatives and have a more diversified positioning. A box within the special feature finds that this greater reliance on derivatives was not sufficient to compensate for the material increase in interest rate risk. The extent of banks’ maturity mismatch determines the sensitivity of their net interest income to changes in interest rates and the slope of the yield curve. This special feature provides empirical evidence that the more banks engage in maturity transformation, the more their net interest margin benefits from a steepening of the yield curve, boosting bank profits. This effect might dissipate going forward, especially for banks in countries where variable-rate lending predominates.
- JEL Code
- G21 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Banks, Depository Institutions, Micro Finance Institutions, Mortgages
G32 : Financial Economics→Corporate Finance and Governance→Financing Policy, Financial Risk and Risk Management, Capital and Ownership Structure, Value of Firms, Goodwill
- 20 November 2023
- FINANCIAL STABILITY REVIEW - BOXFinancial Stability Review Issue 2, 2023Details
- Abstract
- Euro area bank earnings have reached multi-year highs, while bank equity valuations have not substantially exceeded pre-pandemic levels. Banks’ exposure to corporate credit risk and the perception of their stocks as value stocks have contributed to the stagnant valuations. However, valuations cannot be fully explained by fundamentals and may be due to heightened uncertainty about shareholder access to returns earned by banks. Overall, this increases the cost of lending to the real economy and makes it harder for banks to raise capital.
- JEL Code
- G12 : Financial Economics→General Financial Markets→Asset Pricing, Trading Volume, Bond Interest Rates
G21 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Banks, Depository Institutions, Micro Finance Institutions, Mortgages
G32 : Financial Economics→Corporate Finance and Governance→Financing Policy, Financial Risk and Risk Management, Capital and Ownership Structure, Value of Firms, Goodwill
G35 : Financial Economics→Corporate Finance and Governance→Payout Policy
- 31 May 2023
- FINANCIAL STABILITY REVIEW - BOXFinancial Stability Review Issue 1, 2023Details
- Abstract
- This box investigates recent changes in the cost and the composition of bank deposits. It provides estimates of the sensitivity of banks’ deposit rates to changes in policy rates, demonstrating that this depends on the type of deposit and on bank-specific characteristics. Moreover, it finds that competition in the term deposit market has been increasing recently. It goes on to show that, since the beginning of 2022, higher interest rates have increased non-financial corporations’ appetite for better remunerated deposit types, shifting banks’ deposit mixes away from stickier overnight deposits towards rate-sensitive term deposits. Finally, it hints that, going forward, rising competition and a reallocation of funds from overnight to term deposits may lead to an increase in the cost of deposits that is faster and larger than expected.
- JEL Code
- E5 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit
G21 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Banks, Depository Institutions, Micro Finance Institutions, Mortgages
- 30 May 2023
- FINANCIAL STABILITY REVIEW - ARTICLEFinancial Stability Review Issue 1, 2023Details
- Abstract
- The ability of market participants to access funding and conduct transactions in an efficient way is a prerequisite for financial stability, providing shock-absorption capacity and, in turn, limiting the scope for shock amplification. Market liquidity and funding liquidity are inherently connected. When market liquidity evaporates, financial market pricing becomes less reliable and tends to overreact, leading to increased market volatility and higher funding costs. Funding liquidity enables market participants to take exposures onto their balance sheets, thus absorbing fluctuations in demand and supply in the name of efficient market functioning. Under extreme conditions, markets can stop functioning altogether. While liquidity has many dimensions, from a systemic perspective the interplay between market liquidity and funding liquidity is key, as these two dimensions can reinforce each other in ways that generate liquidity spirals. Cyclical factors such as the business cycle, systemic leverage and monetary and fiscal policy affect the probability of liquidity stress arising. In the light of the current challenges of high financial market volatility, increased risk of recession, bouts of heightened risk aversion and monetary policy normalisation, this special feature constructs composite indicators for market liquidity and funding liquidity. It attempts also to identify the causes of poor market and funding liquidity conditions and to show how the two dimensions interact in the euro area.
- JEL Code
- E52 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Monetary Policy
E58 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Central Banks and Their Policies
G15 : Financial Economics→General Financial Markets→International Financial Markets
G21 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Banks, Depository Institutions, Micro Finance Institutions, Mortgages
- 15 November 2022
- FINANCIAL STABILITY REVIEW - ARTICLEFinancial Stability Review Issue 2, 2022Details
- Abstract
- Digitalisation is transforming the global economy, including by raising productivity and broadening consumer access to information. While these forces are facilitating greater competition, supporting economic growth and lowering prices, the benefits are not without risks – the flip side of digitalisation can be greater vulnerability to cyberattacks. For these to be a source of risk to financial stability, substitutability, risk correlation and interconnectedness are all key dimensions. A cyberattack on a critical infrastructure or an attack on one service that unearths vulnerabilities in another could quickly lead to system-wide stresses. Negative externalities arising from the effectiveness of financial institutions’ management of cyber risk could provide grounds for a public policy response. While the existing macroprudential policy toolkit has limited capacity to address cyber risks, their growing relevance nevertheless calls for macroprudential overseers to anticipate them, assess the capacity of the financial system to absorb them, and to issue risk warnings when warranted. In this vein, econometric evidence suggests that cyberattacks are not random, but are driven by factors such as economic strength, the degree of financial globalisation as well as policy and political uncertainty. This underscores how important it is for authorities to foster the sharing of information and the closing of data gaps on cyberattacks.
- JEL Code
- D43 : Microeconomics→Market Structure and Pricing→Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
D62 : Microeconomics→Welfare Economics→Externalities
D82 : Microeconomics→Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty→Asymmetric and Private Information, Mechanism Design
E6 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook
G22 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Insurance, Insurance Companies, Actuarial Studies
G28 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Government Policy and Regulation
H41 : Public Economics→Publicly Provided Goods→Public Goods
- 25 May 2022
- FINANCIAL STABILITY REVIEW - BOXFinancial Stability Review Issue 1, 2022Details
- Abstract
- Relying on an economic value approach and exploiting granular supervisory data on euro area banks, this box finds that the aggregate impact of higher interest rates on bank net worth would be moderately negative, but wide variations exist at the level of individual banks. Over time, derivatives have played an offsetting role, allowing banks to reduce their interest rate risk exposures arising from on- and off-balance-sheet positioning. In line with the expectation of higher interest rates, empirical evidence from EMIR data shows that banks have increased the volume of longer-dated interest rate swaps on which they receive floating rates, mainly trading these contracts with insurance companies and pension funds.
- JEL Code
- G21 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Banks, Depository Institutions, Micro Finance Institutions, Mortgages
G12 : Financial Economics→General Financial Markets→Asset Pricing, Trading Volume, Bond Interest Rates
- 15 November 2021
- FINANCIAL STABILITY REVIEW - ARTICLEFinancial Stability Review Issue 2, 2021Details
- Abstract
- This special feature reviews recent trends in the consolidation of the euro area banking sector, examines the characteristics and drivers of bank M&A transactions, and analyses the impact of bank mergers and acquisitions on the performance of euro area banks. Bank mergers and acquisitions (M&As) have been subdued in the euro area since the global financial crisis. Most M&A activity has had a domestic focus and involved smaller targets, with larger and sounder acquirers acting as consolidators. Consolidation seems on average to have had a moderately positive impact on the profitability of the banks involved, although high levels of variance reveal the presence of large execution and design risks amid low overall returns on capital in the banking sector. Improved post-transaction profitability can be linked to targets’ lower cost efficiency, liquidity and capitalisation. Cross-border M&A transactions have been concentrated within a few small groups of euro area countries, supported by prior financial links and geographical proximity. Such transactions tend to be followed by a stronger improvement in profitability than domestic mergers, although this effect has diminished since the global financial crisis.
- JEL Code
- G21 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Banks, Depository Institutions, Micro Finance Institutions, Mortgages
G34 : Financial Economics→Corporate Finance and Governance→Mergers, Acquisitions, Restructuring, Corporate Governance
F36 : International Economics→International Finance→Financial Aspects of Economic Integration
- 23 November 2020
- FINANCIAL STABILITY REVIEW - BOXFinancial Stability Review Issue 2, 2020Details
- Abstract
- The coronavirus pandemic has threatened the existence of many euro area firms. While liquidity shortages were seen as the major threat to corporate health at the beginning of the pandemic, more recently firms’ solvency has become the primary concern. Against this backdrop, this box assesses euro area corporate vulnerabilities and the underlying factors. It develops a new composite indicator that allows analysis of the time-varying impact and the relative importance of the factors driving corporate financial soundness and risk. Using aggregate sectoral accounts data, this measure combines indicators along five dimensions: debt service capacity, leverage/indebtedness, financing/rollover, profitability and activity. According to the composite indicator, corporate vulnerabilities have increased to levels last observed at the peak of the euro area sovereign debt crisis and are largely driven by a drop in sales, lower actual and expected profitability, and an increase in leverage and indebtedness. However, extensive monetary, fiscal and prudential policy measures have limited the increase in corporate vulnerability, primarily by ensuring favourable funding conditions. So far, government loan guarantees and bankruptcy moratoria have also prevented a large wave of corporate defaults, but a sizeable number of firms could be forced to file for bankruptcy if these measures are lifted too early or bank lending conditions tighten.
- JEL Code
- E6 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook
G3 : Financial Economics→Corporate Finance and Governance
- 18 November 2019
- FINANCIAL STABILITY REVIEW - BOXFinancial Stability Review Issue 2, 2019Details
- Abstract
- Over the past decade, banks have been called to account for their past misconduct. The redress for misconduct has reduced the net income of euro area banks by one-third since the global financial crisis. Analysis further suggests that misconduct costs have had a negative impact on major euro area banks’ one-year buy-and-hold stock returns, after controlling for other bank-specific variables as well as bank and time fixed effects. This relationship appears to be strongest in the immediate aftermath of the global financial crisis, which might indicate greater investor concern about misconduct costs during times of stress.
- JEL Code
- G21 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Banks, Depository Institutions, Micro Finance Institutions, Mortgages
G38 : Financial Economics→Corporate Finance and Governance→Government Policy and Regulation
K42 : Law and Economics→Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior→Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
- 11 November 2019
- OCCASIONAL PAPER SERIES - No. 236Details
- Abstract
- This paper takes an eclectic approach to investigating the notion of overcapacities in banking along the dimensions of (i) banking sector size, (ii) bank competition and (iii) banking infrastructure/efficiency, thereby offering a nuanced and granular view of the topic. In terms of measurement, a newly developed composite indicator synthesises these different layers into a single metric of overcapacities in banking, comparing developments in major advanced economies across the globe over the period from 2006 to 2017. Offering a relative comparison across countries and time, the composite indicator suggests that most countries in the sample have managed to reduce overcapacities in banking since the onset of the global financial crisis, albeit to varying degrees, as some were better able to adapt to the changing environment than others, in particular by deleveraging, rationalising costly physical infrastructure and exploiting the benefits of technological innovation. A panel framework is then used to analyse a number of hypotheses derived from the literature, with the aim of shedding light on the determinants of overcapacities in banking, the direction of the relationship, and their relative importance. The results indicate that non-bank competition, the interest rate environment as well as bank business models are the most important driving factors of the overall degree of overcapacity in banking. With respect to the specific dimensions, non-bank competition seems to be particularly relevant for the size pillar, while demographic features and technological innovation appear to play a prominent role for explaining the competition and infrastructure/efficiency dimensions. The findings provide useful insights for policy makers concerning the possible design, calibration and effectiveness of potential policy responses that aim to address the issue of overcapacities in banking.
- JEL Code
- C12 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General→Hypothesis Testing: General
C23 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Single Equation Models, Single Variables→Panel Data Models, Spatio-temporal Models
G21 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Banks, Depository Institutions, Micro Finance Institutions, Mortgages
L1 : Industrial Organization→Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance
O57 : Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth→Economywide Country Studies→Comparative Studies of Countries