The EU is well prepared for the possibility that the Corona-pandemic on the situation of individual banks, the impact of These considers the Head of the EU Bank resolution authority, the SRB, Elke König. “While we have no crystal ball and do not know, therefore, what happens in the coming months; and we certainly do not know what the consequences will be the Covid-19 Virus in the Individual to the banks,” said king at a press conference on Tuesday in Brussels. “But we have a good set of rules for a potential Bank resolution, and we know that it would fulfil its purpose.” The SRB is for the around 120 major European banks, which are under the supervision of the European Central Bank (ECB).

Werner Mussler

economic correspondent in Brussels.

F. A. Z.

According to king’s estimates, the banks should have a “mild Covid-19-scenario” without difficulty can to survive. So far, the Institute for the financing of the crisis effects are part of the solution and should not largely be at risk. Individual banks have also shielded the state “”. The industry has come through the crisis, stable, not wanted to deny that, said the king: “banks were before the crisis, weak, not have since become more secure.”

medium-term requirements are not changed

According to king’s data, the Corona, has been delayed crisis the planned increase of the minimum capital buffer (MREL), as he prescribed in the new EU minimum capital regulation and Bank resolution is critical, hardly. The European regulatory authorities had acted in the Corona-crisis to date, appropriate, and prudently: “We have given the banks in their day to day business a bit of air by, we have moved some of the deadlines to the rear. But the medium-term targets have not changed.“ For their authority is the “business-as-usual means” in unusual times”.

To the SRB, the European Bank resolution Fund, SRF is affiliated. He should be filled until 2023, with approximately 70 billion euros, which will be financed from levies of Bank levies and, in the case of a case for the resolution of an ailing Bank should be used. Since the beginning of the year, the Fund has received an order from 3066 institutions a further 9 billion euros and currently consists of 42 billion euros. Thus, the funds in the Plan, said the king. She criticized, however, that the plans be advised to the Expansion of the banking Union to a Halt. Still not final, it is decided that the Euro-crisis Fund, the ESM as a Backstop (the”Common Backstop”) to be used for the SRF and its volume in the case of an emergency can expand. This will be decided under the German presidency of the EU in the coming months, hopefully quickly.