EU Weighs Bank State-Debt Limits to Ease Germany's Risk Concerns
- EBA's Farkas says government bonds get very special treatment
- Euro-area state paper accounts for 10% of total bank assets
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Restrictions on banks’ holdings of government debt are under discussion as European Union policy makers try to address German demands for risk reduction before the bloc moves ahead with closer financial ties.
Euro-area sovereign bonds accounted for just over 10 percent of banks’ assets in the currency area, or 2.73 trillion euros ($3 trillion), at the end of 2015, an increase of about 300 billion euros from a year earlier, according to European Central Bank data. And the euro zone is hardly unique.