No. 137 - Recent trends in long-term bank funding

We assess the long-term funding conditions for banks in the US, the euro area and the UK and, separately, for the group of global systemically important financial institutions (G-SIFIs), over the period 1997-2011. After the outbreak of the subprime crisis there was a considerable reshuffling of the relative weight of banks' funding sources, also due to non-conventional monetary policy interventions, government support measures and a significant increase in wholesale funding costs. By looking at 6,400 bank bonds we find that both implicit and explicit guarantees by the sovereign have a substantial role in shaping the wholesale cost of bond issuance with significant differences between AAA-rated and lower-rated countries. However, when a bank CDS exists the role of the government is significantly reduced with the market giving more weight to the soundness and creditworthiness of the issuing institution.