And here I am thinking smugly, we've no exposure to EM. We do to Europe but not EM. No sir.
As they say, you sleep with someone and you are actually sleeping with everyone they've ever slept with.
From ZeroHedge:
The $3 Trillion Hole - Why EM Matters To European Banks
How many times in the last few days have we been told that Turkey - or Ukraine or Venezuela or Argentina - are too small to matter? How many comparisons of Emerging Market GDP to world GDP to instill confidence that a little crisis there can't possible mean problems here. Putting aside this entirely disingenuous perspective, historical examples such as LTCM, and ignoring the massive leverage in the system, there is a simple reason why Emerging Markets matter. As Reuters reports, European banks have loaned in excess of $3 trillion to emerging markets, more than four times US lenders - especially when average NPLs for historical EM shocks is over 40%.
The risk is most acute for six European banks - BBVA, Erste Bank, HSBC, Santander, Standard Chartered, and UniCredit
As Reuters notes,...MORE
European banks have loaned in excess of $3 trillion (1.83 trillion pounds) to emerging markets, more than four times U.S. lenders and putting them at greater risk if financial market turmoil in countries such as Turkey, Brazil, India and South Africa intensifies.
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But the exposure could be a headache for the industry as a whole, just as it faces a rigorous health-check by the European Central Bank, aiming to expose weak points and restore investor confidence in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.
"We think EM (emerging markets) shocks are a real concern for 2014," said Matt Spick, analyst at Deutsche Bank. "When currency (volatility) combines with revenue slowdowns and rising bad debts, we see compounding threats to the exposed banks."
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An emerging markets crisis could hit banks in a variety of ways - a collapse in local currency can hurt reported earnings or capital held in the country; loan losses can jump as interest rates rise; or income from capital markets activity or private banking can fall.
