ticking
Just weeks ago, Italy’s Minister of Economy Pier Carlo Padoan insisted that the two banks would not be wound down. Last year, to dispel the mountain of evidence to the contrary, he insisted that that there would be no need of any future bail outs; and that, furthermore, Italy did not even have a banking problem.
In early June, the two banks were instructed by the European Commission to raise an additional €1.25 billion in private capital. No one bit. Italy’s government then tried to persuade the European Commission and the ECB to water down the requirement to €600-800 million, and it urged Italian banks to chip in to the bank rescue fund.
All that failed. So this weekend, the Italian government gets to sit down together for a friendly chat to enact the necessary measures to protect depositors and senior bondholders in those two banks. Stockholders will be crushed. Junior bondholders will likely get slammed hard. And the Italian taxpayer might face some additional pain – all of it caused by many years of terrible and reckless bank management. The saga of the long-festering banking crisis has thus moved on to the next chapter.
A new era has begun in Europe. And it started in Spain. Many Banco Popular investors were wiped out. Taxpayers are off the hook. Read… “Bail-In” Era for Europe’s Banking Crisis Begins
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