28/9/2014: Euro area banks deposits: no sign of significant improvements

Courtesy of @cigolo - a nice chart summing up trends in deposits in Euro area banks from 2009 through Q2 2014:

Italy and Slovenia are two countries that managed to raise the deposit levels in their banking system from Q1 2009. Portugal suffered a decline in deposits off the peak, but stayed above 2009 levels. In every other country sampled, deposits fell from 2009 levels. Note: Ireland too suffered a decline in deposits and in fact, once we control for the reclassifications in deposits, the decline has been more dramatic than the one depicted in the chart (see details here: http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2014/09/2792014-growth-just-not-in-irish.html).

Since the Cypriot bailout, and the introduction of bail-in clause for depositors, Euro area banks deposits stayed basically flat in Italy (with slight decline in trend) and Greece, rose in Slovenia, posted a shallow increase in Portugal, declined in Ireland and Spain, collapsed further in Cyprus. While there was no immediately obvious common trend, deposits pre-Cypriot bailout trend was disrupted or failed to improve in Italy, Slovenia, Cyprus, Portugal, Ireland, Spain and Greece despite numerous efforts to shore up the fallout from the bail-ins under the new systems set up for the European Banking Union.

So much for reformed banking sectors, then. Remember that funding in European banks should be shifting toward more reliance on 'organic' sources, e.g. deposits, than on interbank lending. We are yet to see this happening on any appreciable scale across the 'peripheral' economies.