, Columnist
Bankers Face a Harsh New Coronavirus Reality
Europe’s lenders are entering the latest crisis in a strong financial position, but the outlook for their profitability is increasingly bleak.
Harder times.
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For a brief moment, Europe’s banks appeared to have escaped the unhappy legacies of the financial and sovereign debt crises. Lenders were emerging from a never-ending cleanup of their balance sheets, they’d built larger capital buffers against potential shocks and they’d promised to return more of their profit to investors.
Shares in the industry rallied impressively and even the riskiest bank debt was back in vogue. There were reasons to hope that profitability would improve, albeit slowly.