pray prayer prey Japan
Image: Jesslee Cuizon, Flickr
UPDATE: Now it looks like Commerzbank could be the next bank to fall in the crisis, which we found to have exposure to the PIIGS second only to Dexia of non-peripheral European banks in this exposure stress test.
PREVIOUSLY: EU leaders are dithering over what they should do to stem the escalating eurozone crisis, and banks across Europe are praying that they will get their act together before it's too late.
Economic conditions in core eurozone states like Germany have begun to take a hit, and signs that credit conditions are tightening for banks are everywhere. Banks with high exposures to the PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain) would be the first to feel the heat of a sovereign default or euro exit.
We took a list of the largest European banks by assets and compared their market cap, common equity, and total exposure to PIIGS debt (thank you for the bank statistics, EBA!). Then we calculated exposure to PIIGS debt (sovereign and private) as a percentage of the banks' common equity. (Notice that HSBC, ING, and even Societe Generale are all absent from this list.)
So far our track record is pretty good--we predicted that Dexia was the most vulnerable bank outside of the PIIGS back in July. If the eurozone crisis continues to escalate, we will see more and more banks bow to the pressure of exposure and become unable to borrow money.
The worst 20 cutoff for our test ended up being exposure equal to about 175% of common equity, but it really gets out of control once you get to the PIIGS banks (#1-9). But Dexia's fall suggests that bank vulnerability is already seeping beyond the periphery into the core (#10-20).