New crackdown on the capital structure of banks. With a surprise blow and a letter sent to all the European banks subject to its supervision, the ECB has foreseen the strengthening of capital ratios well beyond the parameters of Basel 3, which establish a floor, i.e. a minimum capital threshold of 7% for all banks.
The new regulations, on the other hand, provide for a separate increase in the capital threshold for each bank but on average more than three percentage points higher than today. In other words, the minimum threshold is destined to rise on average from 7 to 10,5%.
It is no surprise that the stock market backlash was immediate and that above all those of the banks that had earned the most yesterday, like MPS, are now accusing heavy losses: after all, based on the new rules, the floor of the Sienese bank should even rise to 14% . For Ubi the minimum threshold rises to 9,6%, that of Popolare di Vicenza to 11,6%.
After receiving the letter from the ECB supervisors, the banks have a week to present their counter-arguments: after that they will have to adopt the central bank's new requests.
The first comments of most analysts tend to highlight a too strong tightening by the ECB on the capital of the banks and someone wonders if this is not the price to pay to Germany for the green light, by now in things, to the Quantitative easing announced yesterday by Mario Draghi.
