Your updated sovereign-bank loop

Last week we got a Draghi-backed report by the ESRB which challenged the risk-free treatment of sovereigns by banks.

It included such insights as “the evidence presented in the report illustrates, however, that sovereign risk is not a novel concept” and “If sovereign exposures are in fact subject to default risk, consistency with a risk-focused approach to prudential regulation and supervision requires that this default risk is taken into account”. Which, you know, makes sense.

Thing is though, it doesn’t seem like the bank-sovereign nexus is going anywhere fast. As Gary Jenkins put it:

The tone suggests that the ESRB would like to see a change in the regulatory regime although it is clearly a case of ‘Give me chastity, just not yet,’ as this is also the week that the ECB began its QE programme without differentiating on risk between 3 year or 30 year bonds. They have set a yield of -0.2% as where they are prepared to buy anything. Thus technically holders of 30 year bunds could say that is the level they are prepared to sell at.