COMPANIES Germany’s leading banks will have to wipe as much as €90bn off the value of securities and loans this year and next, the Bundesbank warned on Wednesday.
Hans-Helmut Kotz, a Bundesbank board member, called on German banks to use the “room to manoeuvre” created by public-policy responses and a return to economic growth to “put some fat on the ribs” of their capital bases. The 17 largest German banks made writedowns of just over €130bn in 2007 and 2008, according to the Bundesbank.
