Strong capital levels helped banks to continuously fund companies during the past months. Regulators encouraged this by easing regulatory capital requirements. This year also emphasised the importance of capitalisation of banks for the real economy and a potential recovery as well as the immediate impact regulatory capital requirements have on this.
The financial crisis of 2008 has shown that banks and other financial institutions “feel” the impact of a crisis slightly delayed when asset quality starts to deteriorate and NPE levels increase. As this affects the capitalisation of banks and therefore their funding capabilities, the quality of the assets on bank balance sheets will have a strong influence on the economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.
The stressed environment of the Covid-19 pandemic increased not only market and credit risks but also the operational risks of financial institutions. Especially, the broad shift to remote working arrangements have changed the risk profile and the way financial institutions manage such risks fundamentally.
The economic and social impact of the Covid-19 will be one of the key drivers of change in the financial sector. And two areas which have already been the cornerstones for the transformation of the European financial sector – consolidation and digitalisation – are likely gather further momentum due to the pandemic.