The current German economic-financial situation is relatively favourable, even if the growth rate is slightly below the trend experienced in the recent past. Private consumption and net exports grow; less brilliant investments. The deflationary climate prevailing in recent times may have begun to overcome (consumer prices grew by 0,7% y/y in September).
The good performance of the German economy projects positive repercussions on lending, in particular by considerably limiting the deterioration of the loan portfolio (on average for the system, the incidence of impaired loans does not reach 3%).
Nonetheless, the German banking circuit is going through a phase of evident difficulty, from which only the minor banks (cooperative banks and savings banks) are extraneous and which, on the contrary, largely involves almost all groups of a certain size. The extensive restructuring work that has been underway for some time still seems far from being concluded, an assessment that has found new confirmation in the recent stress exercise conducted by the EBA.
Overall, there is a significant difference between the German banking scenario and the situation prevailing in the main European countries where (albeit to different extents) two components can always be distinguished: on the one hand, the institutions that have recovered a (limited) positive profitability, reduced the set of risks with which they are confronted, completed the process of adjustment to the more demanding capital parameters of Basel; on the opposite side there are highly fragile institutions which therefore still need assistance. If one focuses on institutions of some size, this division in Germany is rather difficult.
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