French banks “are not exposed” to the bankrupt American bank Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), a spokeswoman for the Banque de France told Agence France-Presse on Monday, confirming information from the daily Le Parisien. SVB, which could no longer cope with the massive withdrawals of its customers, was closed on Friday by the American authorities.
The latter announced on Sunday a series of measures to reassure individuals and businesses about the solidity of the American banking system and will in particular guarantee the withdrawal of all deposits from SVB. They will also allow access to all the deposits of another establishment, Signature Bank, which was closed automatically by the regulator, to everyone’s surprise.
Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire was reassuring on France Info. “The bankruptcy of two American banks does not endanger French banks,” the Minister of the Economy assured France Info on Monday. “I don’t see any risk of contagion, so there is no specific alert,” the minister said.
“We have a banking system which is solid” and “a liquidity ratio which is high”, affirmed Bruno Le Maire, adding that French banking establishments had “very diversified sectors of activity”. French banks “are not exposed to a single business sector”, like Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), which was almost exclusively exposed to the new technology sector, the French minister pointed out.
Asked about the fall in European banking stocks, including French BNP and Societe Generale, he said, “Calm down, calm down, and look at reality! “The reality is that the French banking system is not exposed to SVB. There are no links between the different situations. »
Same story in Brussels, where the failure of the two banks does not represent “a significant risk” for the European financial system, according to the European Commissioner for the Economy, Paolo Gentiloni. “There is no direct contagion and the possibility of an indirect impact is something we need to monitor, but at the moment we don’t see any significant risk,” he said in Brussels, before a meeting of euro area finance ministers.
This Monday, Joe Biden assured that Americans could “have confidence” in their banking system, the American president promised to do “whatever is necessary” to keep it “solid”. “We appreciate and take note of the initiative taken by the US authorities to avoid contagion in the United States”, commented Paolo Gentiloni, who indicated that the European Commission was following “the situation in close contact with the ECB”.
However, these announcements did not prevent Wall Street from opening lower on Monday morning, and several regional banks collapsed. In Europe too, the star indices of the main markets suffered, with declines ranging from 2 to 3%, or even beyond for the main indices, and banking stocks suffered sharp declines. An impact on the share price of European banks was “predictable”, said Paolo Gentiloni.
