18/6/2014: IMF analysis of Irish households' balance sheet

In previous two posts (here and here) I looked at the IMF's assessment of Irish banks. Now, lets take a quick look at the state of Irish households' balance sheets… Note: I covered outstanding credit to Irish households here.

Again, per IMF: "Household savings remain elevated, with three-quarters of savings devoted to debt reduction since 2010." Which practically means that savings and investment are now decoupled completely: we 'save' loads, we 'save' primarily to pay down debts. We, subsequently, invest nearly nada.

And savings rate has declined: in last 4 quarters on record below 10%, back toward the levels last seen at the end of 2008. Which should mean that consumption should be rising (as savings down)? Not really. Burden of debt is trending down still, from 2012 local peak, but this is still not enough to trigger increased consumption. Hence, the only conclusion is that savings down + consumption flat = income down. Might ask Minister Noon if his policies on indirect taxation have anything to do with this…

More ominously, for all this repayment of debts reflected in our 'savings' rates, the debt pile is not declining significantly:

What is going on? Especially since the recent 18 months should have registered significant debt reductions due to insolvencies and mortgages arrears resolutions acceleration? Ah, of course, that is what is driving the aggregate debt figures (although in many cases the debts are actually rising due to mortgages arrears resolutions, plus sales of debt to agencies outside the cover of Irish Central Bank, like IBRC mortgages sales).

Plus, for all the talk about mortgages arrears resolutions, the problem is barely being tackled when it comes to actual figures:

Oh, and the banks are continuing to squeeze depositors and fleece borrowers:

It's Happy Hour in the banking rip-off (sorry, CBI, profit margins rebuilding) saloon... All along, households are still under immense pressure on the side of their debt overhang.


Next Post: Economic Forecasts from the IMF

18/6/2014: ECB Assessment of Irish Banks: IMF view

In the previous post, I looked at the IMF report on Irish banks from the point of view of ongoing developments and balance sheet repairs (link here). Now, let's take a look at IMF report from the point of view of the ECB stress tests.

Per IMF: "The ECB’s Comprehensive Assessment and corrective actions where needed are important to reinforce confidence in European banks, including in Ireland (see stress tests parameters described below).

"AIB, BoI, and PTSB all reported capital ratios above the regulatory minima at end 2013. Notwithstanding, a finding of a capital need under the Assessment cannot be precluded, with results due to be announced in October." In effect, here's your warning, Ireland - IMF has no confidence as to the outcome of the tests and this is in line with the risks to the sector still working through banks balance sheets, as highlighted in the previous post.

Never mind, though, as per IMF "Private capital is the first line of recourse and it is welcome that market conditions for European bank equity issuance currently appear relatively favorable."

While IMF seems to think there are plenty of crazies out there willing to bet a house on banks stocks valuations, the IMF is still hedging its bets: "Nonetheless, where private capital is insufficient, public support may be needed, including from a common euro area backstop to protect market confidence and financial stability; the possibility of ESM direct recapitalization should not be excluded."

Which begs a question or two:
1) Will ESM come in ahead of irish taxpayers? Answer - unlikely.
2) If ESM were to come in, will it have seniority over previous taxpayers equity in the banks (in other words, will it destroy whatever recoverable value we have achieved so far)? Answer - likely.

IMF is less gung-ho on the idea of immediate state supports in the worst case scenario: "If the supervisory risk element of the assessment identifies other issues, such as profitability or liquidity, staff considers these should be addressed over time in a manner that contains costs while firmly safeguarding financial stability. This is especially important for PTSB, where staff continues to see risks to its return to adequate profitability over a reasonable horizon in its current form, but approval of its European Commission restructuring plan is on hold pending completion of the Assessment."

Oh… ouch…

A chart to illustrate the pains:

Watch that equity cushion in the above for PTSB and the margin on provisions… No wonder IMF is feeling a bit uneasy. But across all banks, Gross Non-performing Loans are nearly par or in excess of the Provisions + Equity + Sub-Debt.

Now onto stress tests.

Agin per IMF: "Irish banks are currently undergoing the ECB’s Comprehensive Assessment (CA). The five largest banks are included: three Irish headquartered banks (AIB, BoI, PTSB), and the domestic subsidiaries of Merrill Lynch and Royal Bank of Scotland. Based on end 2013 data, the CA comprises:
(i) an Asset Quality Review (AQR);
(ii) a forward looking stress test covering 2014–16; and
(iii) a supervisory assessment of key risks in banks’ balance sheets, including liquidity, leverage, and funding."

First thing to note: the time horizon for tests is exceptionally narrow: 2014-2016, or 36 months, of which (by the time the tests are done, at least 6 months data will be already provided). Does anyone think Irish banks will have full visibility on risks and downsides expiring at 2016 end? Good luck to ye.

"The AQR will audit banks’ banking and trading books. For each bank, at least half of the credit risk weighted assets and at least half of the material portfolios will be covered. For the banking book, the AQR will look at the impairment and loan classification, valuation of collateral, and fair valuation of assets, while core processes, pricing models, and revaluation of Level 3 derivatives will be covered in the trading book review. Compared with the CBI’s BSA in 2013, the AQR for the CA has narrower coverage of the banking book by risk weighted assets (RWA), it does not review banks’ RWA models, but does cover the trading book although such exposures are not large for the domestic retail banks."

What this means is that the forthcoming tests are less robust than the CBI tests, but that assumes CBI tests were robust enough.

IMF provides a handy set of charts summarising stress scenario, baseline scenario for the CA against IMF own projections.

"The CA will apply a common equity tier 1 risk based capital floor of 8 percent for the AQR and the stress test baseline, and 5.5 percent for the adverse scenario, using the relevant transitional definitions. Results will be announced in October. If a capital need is identified, the additional capital will have to be raised within 6 months if the shortfall occurs under the AQR or baseline scenario, or within 9 months if it arises under the stress scenario."

In my view, CET1 at 8% floor is a bit aggressive. The floor should have been around 9-10% for Irish banks (and all other distressed banks), while for stronger banks the floor could be 7-8%. But ECB does not want to differentiate ex ante the banking quality tiers present in the euro area markets. Which is fine, but yields and outcome that strongest banks have implied identical floor as the weakest ones.

So overall, my view is that the IMF is being rightly cautious about the banks prospects under the ECB CA exercise. The Fund is hedging clearly in referencing the possibility for banks failing the tests. Key point is that the IMF - having had access to CBI and Department of Finance data and assessments, cannot rule out the possibility that Irish banks might need additional capital and that this capital may require taxpayers stepping in.

Next up: Households Balance Sheets

18/6/2014: IMF on Irish Banks: Still Sick to the Core, but of course, getting better...

IMF released Staff Report on the First Post-Program Monitoring Discussion for Ireland. Some of the highlights over few posts.

First up: banks.

Per IMF: "Banks’ 2013 financial statements show higher provisions and, although easing funding costs are supporting bank profitability, credit continues to contract." Ugh? Surely not because the banks are lowering rates on existent and new debt? CBI data shows no such moves.

Here is how dramatic was the decline in banks funding costs (all declines down to ECB lower rates, plus Government ratings improving):

"AIB, BoI, and Permanent tsb (PTSB) set aside provisions totaling €2.5 billion in the second half,
reflecting the CBI’s updated guidelines introduced in May 2013 and the CBI’s balance sheet assessment (BSA) finalized at end November, together with allowances for new NPLs."

Coverage ratios of provisions to NPLs increased at all the banks. Which is good for banks balance sheets and forward potential for lending, but bad for current potential. And it is material for the stress tests forthcoming (see next post on this).

"Higher net interest income in  2013 partly offset provisioning to result in a smaller full year overall loss than in 2012. However, new lending remained weak, with credit outstanding to households and non-financial firms contracting 3.7 percent and 6.2 percent y/y, respectively, in April."

Ah, I wrote loads about credit supply problems: here's a note on latest data for credit supply to households http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2014/06/1062014-credit-to-irish-households-q1.html and another one on latest data on credit supply to Irish private sector enterprises: http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2014/06/662014-credit-to-irish-resident.html And the third post coming up today will cover the margins banks charge on loans relative to what they pay on deposits... the margins that act to extract value out of the economy.

And here's IMF's chart summarising the above developments:

All said, banking sector remains one of the core weak points. In assessing downside risks to Fund's forecasts for Ireland, IMF identified 4 key sources of risks. Banks are the fourth: "Bank repair shortfalls. As firms’ internal financing capacity is drawn down, sustaining domestic demand recovery will depend increasingly on a revival of sound lending, where substantial work remains ahead to resolve high NPLs to underpin banks’ lending capacity."

But for all the talk, banks remain sick. Per IMF: "Banks’ NPLs remain very high, at 27 percent of loans at end 2013, in a range of 17–35 percent across the three Irish headquartered banks. Such ratios reduce banks’ potential capacity to lend by hurting profitability, including through higher market funding costs, limiting the supply of collateral for funding, and diverting credit skills. With recovery taking root and property markets improving, banks may see further upside from postponing NPL resolution. But such choices at the individual bank level may not sufficiently internalize the macroeconomic impact of banks collectively leaving NPLs at high levels in terms of barriers to new lending and an inefficient allocation of capital, warranting supervisory pressure on banks to accelerate asset clean up. Reducing uncertainties around the value of banks’ loans will also enhance public debt sustainability by supporting valuations for the government’s bank equity holdings, which it intends to dispose."

Here's an interesting bit. We know banks have been slow to deal with Buy-to-Lets, parking bad loans in hope that current debtor will part-fund warehousing of BTL properties (via renting them out) until such time when prices rise and bank can foreclose on these. This strategy clearly maximises banks returns and is happy-times for CBofI, concerned with how good banks look on their 'profitability' side. But it is bad news for the economy, where investors (aka ordinary punters) are bled dry of cash to fund BTLs which will never return any fund they 'invested' in them.

IMF basically tells the CBofI and Irish authorities: you have to force banks deal with these BTLs and smaller CRE loans, i.e. foreclose earlier, not later.

And IMF is onto the task: "In view of improved market conditions, the authorities should press banks to broaden their resolution efforts into impaired CRE loans. Banks hold mostly smaller CRE exposures (below €20 million) that were not transferred to NAMA, yet delinquent CRE loans still account for 40 percent of NPLs. Recent strong IBRC and NAMA deal flow points to potential investor interest—although the nature of the assets differ somewhat—and the banks’ portfolios also have relatively high provisioning cover. Staff therefore recommends that banking supervision press forward the restructuring of these NPLs or their disposal in a manner that achieves sufficient deal flow while avoiding flooding markets. Although one bank is exploring disposal options for its CRE loan portfolio, others prefer loan restructuring to retain potential upside and their customer base."

And a handy chart:

Do notice how weaker provisions cover is delivered on mortgages, while over-provision is a feature of other loans? Priorities… priorities…

SMEs loans are still a huge problem: "SME loan workouts will require ongoing oversight to ensure viability is restored. The two main banks making loans to SMEs report substantial progress in developing workouts for their distressed SME loans, although in practice such workouts will be implemented over some years as restructuring steps by SMEs move forward." Read: the reports are fine, but we won't see full results over some time. Question, unposited by the IMF is: why?

"Recent amendments to the Companies Act facilitating SME less costly examinership procedures are expected to become operational in June, which may be most useful in multi-creditor cases as banks otherwise prefer to conclude workouts outside of the courts."

And finally: mortgages arrears:

"Mortgage resolution should be both timely and durable. …Banks report that by end March they had concluded solutions for over 25 percent of primary dwelling and buy to let loans in arrears for more than 90 days." Never mind the rest?.. Oh, by the way - of 132,217 accounts in arrears in Q1 2014, 39,111 accounts are less than 90 days in arrears. Of all mortgages that were restructured (92,442 accounts) only 53,580 accounts are not in arrears following restructuring. Again, IMF ignores this.

"Targeted audits give the CBI comfort that the solutions underway are durable, but reducing reliance on shortterm modifications paying interest only or less remains important." Interestingly, this is what we - IMHO - have discussed in depth with the IMF team. Irish authorities have seemingly no problem with the banks 'restructuring' mortgages by loading more debt onto households and spreading this debt either over greater duration or offering temporary relief from cash flow pressures of this debt.

How sustainable is this? Well, 'targeted audits' might suggest that a household that owed 100K on a property and was unable to fund it at full rate, can be made sustainable with 110K debt over same property but with 3 years worth of interest-only repayments. I am not so sure. Neither, it appears, is the IMF.

Another thing we discussed with the IMF: "Securing constructive engagement by borrowers remains a key challenge to progress, where extending independent advice to borrowers willing to negotiate with lenders may be helpful."

So far, the CBI has given independent advisers no support whatsoever and given the banks no encouragement to engage with such advisers. IMHO has worked closely with some banks to deliver such advice - and we have a proven track record showing it works. But two 'pillar' banks refuse to engage with us and any other independent advisor on any terms, unless the borrowers pay directly for advice out of their own pockets. Even IMF now sees this to be completely nonsensical.

Last bit: "The Insolvency Service is developing a protocol to standardize loan modifications, which could also help." So IMF now endorses idea of standardised solutions. From 2010 on, when mortgages crisis blew up, I campaigned for the state to impose onto banks standardised resolution products, such as loans modifications parameters, arrears capitalisation and write downs parameters etc. The state refused. We at IMHO briefed the Central Bank on the need for such standardisation. Our submissions were ignored.


Next: ECB Assessment of Irish Banks: IMF view

6/6/2014: Credit to Irish Resident Enterprises: Q1 2014

Since time immemorial (ok, since around 2009) Irish Government after Irish Government has been promising the restoration of functioning credit markets. Targets were set for the banks to lend out to non-financial (aka real economy) enterprises. Targets were repeatedly met. Banks have talked miles and miles about being open for lending, approving loans etc etc etc. And credit continued to fall and fall and fall...

And so the story repeats once again in Q1 2014. Central Bank latest data on credit advanced to Irish resident private sector enterprises attests to the lifeless, deleveraging-bound, zombified banking sector.

• Credit advanced to financial intermediation companies is down 3.63% in Q1 2014 compared to Q4 2014. This marks 9th consecutive quarter of declines. Since Q4 2008, credit has fallen in 11 quarters, and actually it has fallen in 12, since Q4 2011 rise was down to reclassifications being factored into the equation for the first time. Worse than that, majority of declines came since the current Government took office, not before. 
• Credit advanced to financial intermediation and property sectors fell 4.05% q/q in Q1 2014. The fall was steeper than in Q4 2013 compared to Q3 2013 and also marks ninth consecutive quarterly decline in the series or 11th if we are to control for 2011 reclassifications.
• Excluding financial intermediation and property, credit advanced to Irish resident non-financial companies ex-property sector has fallen 1.31% q/q in Q1 2014. This marks fourth consecutive quarterly fall. Credit to the real economy is now down in 20 quarters since Q4 2008. Since the current Government came into office, credit to these companies is down in 10 quarters out of 12.
• Total credit advanced to Irish resident enterprises was down 3.49% q/q in Q1 2014 - steeper than the decline of 3.07% recorded in Q4 2013, and marking ninth consecutive quarter of declines (11th, if reclassifications are ignored).

So keep that hope alive... one day, some day... things will be better. Do not forget to give credit to the Government and the Central Bank - they predicted this 'betterment' years ago and like a stopped clock, one day they will be proven right...

20/5/2014: Irish Credit Supply to Non-Financial, Non-Property Sectors

We keep hearing about banks lending to enterprises and the recovery in the banking sector in general. And we keep watching credit supply in the economy shrinking and shrinking and shrinking. The reality, of course, is simple: our banking system continues to deleverage and alongside, our companies continue to deleverage. This means that legacy debts relating to property investments and development are being washed off the books. Which, of course, accounts for property-related credit. But…

Take a look at this chart, plotting credit advanced to Irish private sector enterprises.

The property deleveraging story is in solid orange. And not surprisingly, it is still heading down. With all the fabled foreign and domestic property buyers reportedly killing each other on their hunts for bricks and mortar assets in Ireland, there is less and less and less credit available for the sector. In part, some of this decline is now being replaced by foreign funding (lending and equity, including private equity). But the credit story is still the same: property related lending is down 6% y/y in Q4 2013 (latest for which we have data).

Deleveraging in financial sector is also there - the sector credit lines have shrunk 15% y/y in Q4 2013.

But what on earth is happening in the 'healthy' (allegedly) sectors of the economy - those ex-Property and ex-Financial Intermediation? Here, total credit is down 4% y/y in Q4 2013.

In fact, from Q2 2009 onward, Irish financial system registered not a single quarter of y/y increases in credit supply to non-financial and non-property enterprises in Ireland. That's right: credit did not go up even in a single quarter. Worse, between Q4 2011 and Q4 2013, average annual rate of decline in credit to real economy was -4.0% which is exactly the same as in Q4 2013. In other words, even in terms of growth rates, there is no improvement. 

9/5/2014: Irish Credit Conditions Worsened in Q1 2014

Latest data on interest rates (covered here: http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2014/05/952014-cost-of-credit-in-ireland-kept.html) and credit outstanding in the Irish banking system shows continued deleveraging in the economy:

At the end of Q1 2014,
-  Total volume of loans outstanding declined 5.6% y/y,
-  Loans to Households were down 1.54% y/y and
-  Loans to NFCs were down 9.29%.
-  Loans for house purchases were down EUR1.46bn,
-  Households' overdrafts rose EUR1.39bn, while
-  Consumer credit loans were down EUR1.43bn.
-  NFCs overdrafts fell EUR2.81bn and
-  Non-overdraft NFCs credit fell EUR5.2bn.

So credit available to enterprises and households in Ireland is still falling. More significantly, households are accumulating overdraft liabilities. And the cost of these facilities is rising.

Not a good sign, suggesting households and corporates are being squeezed on both ends of the debt deflation pump.

07/03/2014: To sterilise or not to sterilise... ECBs (possible) next dilemma

Yesterday, I was asked by a journalist a question about the possible effects of ECB non-sterilising SMP operations. 

The question was in relation to the measure that has been rumoured as being a part of the ECB’s toolkit under consideration for adoption and it is bound to come up in the next meeting of the GC.

The answer is that we do not know.

Currently, ECB is sterilising around EUR175 billion via weekly operations. Absent such sterilisations, the money will remain within the euro system banks. This is as far as we know. Beyond this point, we can only speculate as to what will happen. 

In normal monetary and balancesheet conditions, banks will lend this money out into the interbank markets, leading to reduced Eonia and, downstream also Euribor, rates. This, in turn, will increase banks willingness to lend to the real economy - businesses and households, but also to purchase government debt. Traditionally, non-sterilised market interventions are seen as an effective tool for increasing money supply in the environment of zero-bound interest rates. And there are good reasons to believe that such a measure would be more effective in raising supply of credit in the euro system than a 25bps cut in the policy rate, as it will likely have a more dramatic effect on Eonia rate and simultaneously flatten the money market curve. Additional benefit of such a measure will be the signal it will send to the markets. Removing requirement to sterilise its SMP, ECB will be signalling that it is open to the traditional QE measures - extending 'whatever it takes' argument from sovereign risk markets (OMT) to the real economy (deflation risks). This too is likely to add liquidity available in the euro system.

However, we are not in a 'normal' monetary and balancesheet environment. Increasing supply of liquidity via non-sterilising SMP can lead to banks substituting away from their normal ECB funding, and as the result, net liquidity supply may not rise by as much as the reduction in sterilisations. 

Two other, longer-term, effects of non-sterilising SMP are: potential loss of credibility and threat to OMT.

By not sterilising SMP, the ECB will signal a major departure from its past commitments, which does not help market confidence in its other commitments, namely the commitment to hold interest rates low over long term horizon. This is a relatively weak argument against non-sterilising of SMP, as all long term monetary policy commitments are only credible as long as underlying fundamentals warrant them. The second point is more salient. ECB committed itself to sterilising not only SMP but also OMT purchases. So far, ECB did not make any OMT purchases, but it already faces stern opposition to OMT from Germany. If ECB signals willingness to break its commitments to sterilisation under SMP, it can send a wrong signal on its commitments to the same under OMT, further putting pressure on ECB to scrap OMT.

Overall, materially, removing requirement to sterilise SMP will, in my view, result in a moderate drop in Eonia and will provide improved supply of credit to the economies that currently do not witness severe credit constraints, such as Germany, where current credit supply conditions are already the most favourable of any period in recent history.

But I doubt that such a measure will have a material impact on peripheral economies due to the general breakdown in the transmission mechanism within the euro area.

Crucially, if ECB opts for non-sterilisation of SMP over the option of lowering policy rates, such a move will not help existent debtors. As the result, non-sterilisation might help where help is least needed and will do little to provide any support for economies with severe corporate and household debt overhang.

Finally, along the longer range expectations, forward-looking agents will be pricing – in the wake of non-sterilisation now – higher uplift in lending rates when monetary policy returns onto normalisation path. In other words, with non-sterilisation today we can expect higher rates in the future, with sharper rises in the rates to long-term trend levels. This too will hurt current borrowers, as lender will be less likely to pass on margins uplifts they will receive if non-sterilisation does deliver reduction in the interbank lending rates.

Note: my view of the lower/reduced effectiveness of non-sterilised interventions is in line with the view held by many researchers and the ECB that we are operating in the environment with broken transmission mechanism. Application of this argument in the OMT case is exemplified here: http://www.cesifo-group.de/DocDL/cesifo1_wp4628.pdf

31/1/2014: January Credit Supply Conditions: Germany

Credit supply survey from Germany shows slight tightening in credit conditions, but continues to trend at the levels consistent with historically low credit constraints:

No surprise then that German policymakers are not to phased about the issues of credit supply... 

4/12/2013: Did US banks deregulations spur SMEs productivity?

An interesting study via Kauffman Foundation of the effects of banking sector deregulation and competition on SMEs productivity in the US.

Krishnan, Karthik and Nandy, Debarshi K. and Puri, Manju study, titled "Does Financing Spur Small Business Productivity? Evidence from a Natural Experiment" (published November 21, 2013 http://ssrn.com/abstract=2358819) assessed "how increased access to financing affects firm productivity" based on a large sample of manufacturing firms from the U.S. The study relied on "a natural experiment following the interstate bank branching deregulations that increased access to bank financing and relate these deregulations to firm level total factor productivity (TFP)."

Core results "indicate that firms' TFP increased subsequent to their states implementing interstate bank branching deregulations and these increases in productivity following the deregulation were long lived."

In addition, "TFP increases following the bank branching deregulations are significantly greater for financially constrained firms. In particular, …we show that firms that are close to but not eligible for financial support from the U.S. Small Business Administration (and are thus more financially constrained) have higher TFP increases after the deregulation than firms that just satisfy eligibility criteria (and are hence less financially constrained)."

Overall, the "results are consistent with the idea that increased access to financing can increase financially constrained firms' access to additional productive projects that they may otherwise not be able to take up. Our results emphasize that availability of financing is important for improving the productivity of existing entrepreneurial and small firms."

By proxy, the results also show that increased presence of banking institutions in the economy does contribute positively to productivity enhancing funding availability for the firms.

10/10/2013: IMF's GFSR October 2013: More Focus on Banks

Now, back to GFSR and banks. I covered some of the IMF findings on banks here: http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2013/10/10102013-imfs-gfsr-october-2013-focus_10.html

This time, let's take a look at what IMF unearthed on funding side of the banking systems. Fasten your seat belts, euro area folks…

Euro area banks have shallower deposits base than US banks… but, wait… euro area banks are supposedly 'universal' model, so supposed to have MORE deposits, than the originate and distribute model of the US banks… Oops… Euro area banks like holding banks deposits - just so contagion gets a bit more contagious. Euro area banks hold tiny proportion of equity, lower than that of the US banks.

By all means, this is a picture of weaker euro area banks than US banks - something I noted here: http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2013/10/9102013-leveraged-and-sick-euro-area.html

Another chart, more bumpy road for euro area:

Per above, there is a massive problem on funding side for euro area banks in the form of huge reliance on debt (both secured and unsecured). The US banks are much less reliant on secured debt (they can issue real paper and raise securitised funding) and they rely less overall on borrowing.

Chart below shows the structure of secured bank debt. Euro area again stand out with huge reliance on covered bonds. US stands out in terms of its continued reliance on MBS. The crisis focal point of the latter did not go away… and the crisis focal source of contagion - banks debt funding - has not gone from euro area's 'reformed' banks.

Happy times... Mr Draghi today expressed his conviction that euro area banks have been cured from their ills... right... hopium-783 is the toast of Frankfurt.

10/10/2013: IMF's GFSR October 2013: Focus on Lending

More interesting analysis from the IMF's GFSR (previously covered topics: banks and corporate debt overhang are linked here: http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2013/10/10102013-imfs-gfsr-october-2013-focus_10.html).

This time around: lending to the economy. One chart:

Note that Ireland is a euro area outlier in terms of the huge extent of policy supports one demand side for credit and simultaneously above average support on supply side of credit:

Puzzled? Me too. Yes, we have huge number of various programmes, grants, schemes, incentives for funding supply and demand. Most of it is not in the form of credit, but rather equity - e.g. Enterprise Ireland funding. No, we don't have much of credit supply supports when it comes to policies or institutions relating to banks. We have lots of hot air talking about the need for banks to lend, more hot air on various 'checks' as to whether banks are lending or not… etc. So let's take a look at the table where the IMF gets its ideas on the above policies existence:

Per table above, Ireland has produced policies of Household Debt Restructuring. Wake me up here, folks, cause I am apparently living in some different Ireland from the one visited by the IMF. Oh, and yes, we also have put in place new policies on Corporate Debt Restructuring. What are these? Hiding our heads in the sand as companies go to the wall? Or may be these are policies promised on dealing with upward-only rent reviews which have driven thousands of companies into the ditch?

I think the IMF folks need to get out a bit more often… before compiling reports...

10/10/2013: IMF's GFSR October 2013: Focus on Banks

As promised in the earlier post, focusing on Corporate Debt Overhang (http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2013/10/10102013-imfs-gfsr-october-2013-focus.html), I am covering in a series of posts the latest IMF GFSR.

Let's take a look at the banking sector focus within the GFSR:

Note the relatively healthy position of the euro area banks on the basis of Tier 1 capital ratios. However, when it comes to leverage, the chart below shows a ratio of tangible equity to tangible assets (the so-called Tangible Leverage ratio). The higher the number in the first chart above, the lower is the capital ratio ('bad thing'), the higher the number is in the chart below, the higher is the ratio of equity to assets ('good thing'):

So euro area banks are doing fine by Tier 1 capital, but are not fine by leverage... As the rest of the IMF analysis highlights, much of this aberrational result arises from the nature of the euro area banking model (assets-heavy 'universal banking' model), plus, as IMF politely puts:

"The conflicting signals also highlight the  importance of restoring investor confidence in the accuracy and consistency of bank risk weights. This also suggests that risk-weighted capital ratios should be supplemented by leverage ratios, as proposed in the Basel III framework."

No comment on the above...

GFSR is deadly on profitability of banks and equity valuations. Here's the key chart:

Notice the concentration of euro area banks at the bottom of the distribution. Still think Irish banks shares held by the Exchequer are worth EUR11 billion?.. really?.. By the chart above, they should be valued at around 2-3% of their tangible assets... which would be what? Close to EUR6 billion, maybe EUR9 billion. Which refers to all Irish banks. Listed, unlisted, foreign, domestic... And to all their equity... not just the equity held by the Exchequer.

Never mind. Like Irish banks, euro area banks are going to continue dumping assets... err... deleverage...

"European banks have been deleveraging in response to market and regulatory concerns about capital levels, and may continue to do so. ...a combination of market and regulatory
concerns about bank capitalization has already led to an increase in capital levels at EU banks. …Over the period 2011:Q3–2013:Q2, large EU banks reduced their assets by a total of $2.5 trillion on a gross basis — which includes only those banks that cut back assets — and by $2.1 trillion on a net basis."

So you thought it was surprising/unusual/unexpected that the banks are not lending? Every policymaker harping on about banks credit 'growth' should have known this deleveraging is ongoing and with it, no new credit growth will occur… I mean USD2.5 trillion!

"…About 40 percent of the reduction by the banks in the EU as a whole was through a cutback in loans, with the remainder through scaling back noncore exposures and sales of some parts of their businesses… As discussed in the April 2013 GFSR, banks have been concentrating on derisking their balance sheets by reducing capital-intensive businesses, holding greater proportions of assets with lower risk weights (such as government bonds), and optimizing risk-weight models."

Put differently, to beef up capital ratios, the banks shed primarily riskier loans. Now what these might be? Oh, yes, SMEs and non-financial corporate loans in general… So that 'credit growth' to SMEs?..

"The capital ratio projection exercise previously discussed suggests that some banks will need to continue raising equity or cutting back balance sheets as they endeavor to repair and strengthen their balance sheets."

Read my lips: no new credit growth… QED…

You can read the entire GFSR here: http://www.imf.org/External/Pubs/FT/GFSR/2013/02/pdf/text.pdf

Note: my recent article on European banks is here: http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2013/10/9102013-leveraged-and-sick-euro-area.html