Working paper

The vulnerability of Europe's small and medium-sized banks

Stress tests show significant weaknesses in Europe's small and medium-sized banks. Strengthening the banking system is important to ach

Publishing date: 15 July 2015
Authors: Guntram B. Wolff Ashoka Mody

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We study the vulnerability of 130 banks directly supervised by the European Central Bank’s Single Supervisory Mechanism. Illustrative stress tests using banks’ balance sheet data reveal that significant stress prevails in the euro area’s smaller and medium-sized banks, many of them located in southern Europe. The banks we identify as stressed also have performed substantially worse on the stock market. The vulnerable banks are typically hobbled by non-performing loans to European businesses.

Strengthening the banking system, therefore, is important to achieve sustainable recovery because it will revitalise credit to the healthier segments of the economy. But instead of emphasising bank recapitalisation, as in past years, we believe the task is to shrink the banking sector to a healthier core.

About the authors

Guntram B. Wolff

Guntram Wolff was the Director of Bruegel. Over his career, he has contributed to research on European political economy and governance, fiscal, monetary and financial policy, climate change and geoeconomics. Under his leadership, Bruegel has been regularly ranked among the top global think tanks and has grown in influence and impact with a team of now almost 40 recognized scholars and around 65 total staff. Bruegel is also recognized for its outstanding transparency.

A recognized thought leader and academic, he regularly testifies at the European Finance Ministers' ECOFIN meeting, the European Parliament, the German Parliament (Bundestag) and the French Parliament (Assemblée Nationale). From 2012-16, he was a member of the French prime minister's Conseil d'Analyse Economique. In 2018, then IMF managing director Christine Lagarde appointed him to the external advisory group on surveillance to review the Fund’s priorities. In 2021, he was appointed to the G20 high level independent panel on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. He is also a professor (part-time) at the Solvay Brussels School of Université Libre de Bruxelles, where he teaches economics of European integration.

He joined Bruegel from the European Commission, where he worked on the macroeconomics of the euro area and the reform of euro area governance. Prior to joining the Commission, he was coordinating the research team on fiscal policy at Deutsche Bundesbank. He also worked as an external adviser to the International Monetary Fund.

He holds a PhD in economics from the University of Bonn and studied in Bonn, Toulouse, Pittsburgh and Passau. He taught economics at the University of Pittsburgh and at Université libre de Bruxelles. He has published numerous papers in leading academic journals. His columns and policy work are published and cited in leading international media and policy outlets. Guntram is fluent in German, English, French and has good notions of Bulgarian and Spanish.
Ashoka Mody

Ashoka Mody is the Charles and Marie Robertson Visiting Professor in International Economic Policy at the Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University. Previously, he was Deputy Director in the International Monetary Fund’s Research and European Departments. He was responsible for the IMF’s Article IV consultations with Germany, Ireland, Switzerland, and Hungary, and also for the design of Ireland's financial rescue program. Earlier, at the World Bank, his management positions included those in Project Finance and Guarantees and in the Prospects Group, where he coordinated and was principal author of the Global Development Finance Report of 2001. He has advised governments worldwide on developmental and financial projects and policies, while writing extensively for policy and scholarly audiences.

Mody has been a Member of Staff at AT&T’s Bell Laboratories, a Research Associate at the Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum, and a Visiting Professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. He is a non-resident fellow at the Center for Financial Studies, Frankfurt and the Center for Global Government, Washington D.C. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from Boston University.

Declaration of outside interests 2014

Declaration of outside interests 2015