Madrid (EFE).- The European Central Bank (ECB) is holding an extraordinary meeting of the Supervisory Board this Friday to analyze the turbulence in the banking sector, after the bankruptcies of medium-sized entities in the US and the rescue of Credit Suisse.
The shares of the Swiss entity, which at dawn on Thursday received a loan from the Central Bank of the country of 50,700 million euros, have lived three frantic days on the stock market and today, despite the support received, they fall 11%.
Since Tuesday, the day before the collapse that led to their rescue, they lose 20%.
The bankruptcy of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and Silvergate Bank, two medium-sized entities in the US, has returned to the markets the fear of a financial crisis and has weighed down the stock market price of the entire banking sector, both in the US and in Europe.
In addition, yesterday a group of large US banks contributed 30,000 million euros of capital to First Republic Bank, another medium-sized bank about which doubts weighed after the intervention last weekend of the SVB and Silvergate by the authorities. americans.
In this context, the ECB council has met “to exchange views and to inform members about recent developments in the banking sector,” according to a spokesman for the entity quoted by German media.
At the beginning of this week there was already an extraordinary meeting due to the turbulence suffered by the European banking sector on the stock markets.
Despite everything, the ECB decided yesterday to maintain its plan to raise interest rates by half a percentage point, up to 3.5%, and in its statement it limited itself to saying that it is monitoring market tensions and is prepared to reply.
At the press conference, Lagarde said that banks in the euro area are in a very different situation than they were in 2008, when the American Lehman Brothers went bankrupt and dragged down banks around the world.
Credit Suisse is one of the 50 banks considered to be of systemic relevance to the international financial system and there is fear of contagion in the stock markets.
Analysts in the Swiss press stress that despite the bank’s difficult situation, it will not need a state bailout operation, like the one carried out in 2008 with its competitor UBS due to its exposure to the US real estate crisis.