The CEOs of Germany’s two biggest banks have warned of further damage to the ailing European banking sector and wider economy if the European Central Bank (ECB) cuts interest rates next week.
Meanwhile, American banking giant Goldman Sachs told CNBC its business model insulated it from the risk of a low interest rate environment.
ECB officials have offered conflicting messages as to whether the central bank will announce a substantial package of monetary easing measures at its policy meeting on September 12. These have been mooted to include a change in forward guidance, rate cuts, a tiered deposit rate and recommencing asset purchases.
Speaking at the Handelsblatt Banking Summit in Frankfurt on Wednesday, Deutsche Bank CEO Christian Sewing and Commerzbank CEO Martin Zielke both cautioned that a further cut in interest rates would risk serious side effects while only minimally impacting the economy.
Addressing the summit later in the day, Zielka said the low-rate environment was not a “sustainable and responsible policy.”
Banks in Germany and throughout Europe have long bemoaned the ECB negative interest rate policy which forces banks to pay to park their cash with the central bank, squeezing profits. Banking CEOs and CFOs over the summer queued up to highlight the negative effect of the policy on their first-half results.
Goldman says it’s ‘less of a concern’
However, on the other side of the puddle, some Wall Street giants, such as Goldman Sachs, have said they will have greater resistance to the combination of geopolitical and economic winds.
Goldman Sachs CFO Stephen Scherr told Annette Weisbach of CNBC on Thursday that the bank’s business model had isolated it from the obstacles many of its European and national rivals face.
“We are not so concerned about the nature of our business model, which means that the way we finance and the nature of the floating rate of assets does not lead us to the kind of concern that other large commercial banks would have.” Scherr said.
“But if you look at the main money center banks in the United States, as they do in the big money center banks here in Europe, everyone is anxious about the prospect of increasingly low rates and the inability to generate sufficient assets. to cover your capital cost and your financing cost. ”
Monetary center banks are those whose loan and loan activities are primarily with governments, large corporations and regular banks, rather than consumers.
Consolidation
The European banking sector has long faced calls for consolidation in order to attain the levels of profitability needed to challenge its Wall Street counterparts, and a major merger between Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank fell through earlier this year.
Deutsche Bank and UBS executives have also been reported to have held talks on a potential tie-up for their asset management units.
Scherr said the European banking industry “certainly could use consolidation” but that it was unlikely that Goldman Sachs would play a role.
“I think American banks are by and large quite content in the markets in which they sit, but I do think that consolidation in this market is necessary,” Scherr told CNBC.
“And I think some realization of a bank union is needed in order to facilitate that. At the moment you have multiple flag banks and it’s become quite challenging for them to find the opportunity to engage in consolidation.”
Source : CNBC.COM
