MADRID, 20 Mar. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Italian Minister of Economy, Giancarlo Giorgetti, has acknowledged the surprise caused by the Swiss authorities giving priority to Credit Suisse shareholders over debt holders in the rescue of the entity with the participation of its competitor UBS.
“We are surprised by the order of priority of the guarantees between shareholders and bondholders, however, it seems to me that the European authorities have reaffirmed the order of priorities,” Giorgetti said in statements collected by the media in the transalpine country.
On the other hand, he has expressed his confidence that the repercussions of the Swiss banking crisis will be “insignificant” for Italian banks.
This Monday, in a joint statement, the European Central Bank (ECB), as supervisor of the banking sector, the Single Resolution Board (SRB) and the European Banking Authority (EBA) have recalled that the resolution framework for the European Union it contemplates that the first to assume the losses are ordinary capital instruments.
In this way, the three institutions have recalled that the resolution framework that implements in the European Union the reforms recommended by the Financial Stability Board after the financial crisis has established the order according to which the shareholders and creditors of a bank in trouble must bear the losses.
In particular, common equity instruments are the first to absorb losses, and only after their full use would additional Tier 1 capital be required to be amortized.
In this way, they have ensured that this approach has been applied systematically in previous cases and will continue to guide the actions of the banking supervision of the SRB and the ECB in crisis interventions.
