European banks are entering the weekend with fresh concerns about their future as Deutsche Bank shares fell over 7% on March 24 after a down day in Frankfurt’s markets.
The German bank’s five-year credit default swaps, known as CDS, increased 19 basis points from the previous day, closing at 222 bps, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence data cited by Reuters. The cost of insuring against Deutsche’s potential default risk has also increased.
The fears surrounding European banks are not limited to Deutsche Bank. UBS’s five-year CDS reportedly jumped up 14 bps on March 24 to close to 130 bps. The recent acquisition of Credit Suisse by UBS for $3.25 billion has not assuaged investor concerns about the European banking system. On March 24, shares of Commerzbank declined by as much as 9%, while Société Générale and UBS tumbled over 7% in European trading.
Investors have expressed concern that we are only at the beginning of a widening crisis within the global banking system. Many banks purchased long-dated bonds that have seen their value decimated by the Federal Reserve’s rate hikes.
While the U.S.-based Silicon Valley Bank collapsed on March 10, regulators in the United States and the United Kingdom were able to prevent a potential ripple effect across the banking system. However, similar failure for Deutsche Bank or other European banks is unlikely to happen, according to Ilya Volkov, CEO of the Swiss fintech platform YouHodler.
The current uncertainty surrounding the European banking system is cause for concern, but it is not unexpected. It remains to be seen how the banks will weather this storm and if the measures put in place will be sufficient to prevent a wider crisis. Investors will be closely monitoring the situation, and market participants are expected to assign a higher price to protection during periods of uncertainty.
