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ARTICLE · 27 FEBRUARY 2017

Bank Provisions – An Unavoidable Legacy?

Last month, RBS announced it is to increase its provisions by over GBP 3 billion in relation to investigations and litigation centred on the US residential mortgage-backed securities it underwrote.

United KingdomFinance and Banking

Last month, RBS announced it is to increase its provisions by over GBP 3 billion in relation to investigations and litigation centred on the US residential mortgage-backed securities it underwrote.1  At the same time, the US DoJ has levied further fines exceeding USD 12bn on two European banks to settle claims of abuse within the RMBS market.2 On this backdrop, and prior to the 2016 reporting season, we thought it a suitable time to reflect on the level of provisions within European banking institutions and to explore whether the tide of regulatory penalties is starting to turn.

The graph below shows an increasing trend in the normalised average level of provisioning taken by ten3 of the largest European banks (by balance sheet size) in the wake of the financial crisis:

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