In case you are still wondering how things work in terms of ECB liquidity, read today’s article on Bloomberg: Draghi $158B Free Lunch Boosts Bank Profits.
Banks are benefiting from a European Central Bank subsidy that could reach 120 billion euros ($158 billion), enough to pay every bonus at financial firms in London for the next 24 years at today’s levels.
Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, BNP Paribas SA (BNP) and Societe Generale SA are among more than 500 banks that took 489 billion euros of three-year loans from the Frankfurt-based ECB at a December auction. The loans carry a 1 percent annual interest rate, less than a quarter of the 4.3 percent average yield on euro-denominated senior unsecured bank debt of all maturities in the past year, according to Commerzbank AG.
With borrowing estimated to hit a record 1.2 trillion euros after a second auction later this month, banks may save 120 billion euros over three years. That could boost 2012 profit by about 10 percent for lenders in Italy and Spain, according to estimates by Morgan Stanley.
“This is very much a free lunch,” said Arnd Schaefer, an economist at WestLB AG in Dusseldorf, Germany. “Banks can get money for just 1 percent and then lend it on for much more. That’s pretty good.”
The ECB is flooding the banking system with cheap money in a bid to avert a credit crunch after the market for unsecured bank debt seized up last year and funding from U.S. money markets disappeared. Any bank in the region can borrow an unlimited amount, provided it pledges eligible collateral. Lenders won’t face curbs on bonuses or dividends.
Don’t you love ECB’s version of quantitative easing? And this was only the first round - there's a second round planned for the end of February.
Angry yet?
Angry yet?
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© Philip Ammerman, 2012
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