Cross-border banking in the balance

Exposure fears for Austrian banks

The Austrian banking supervisory authority and the Austrian national bank issued new guidelines for Austrian banks investing in central and eastern Europe on 21 November. The guidelines are designed to prevent Austrian banks, some of the biggest investors in the region's banking sector, from overexposing themselves to risk. 

Subsidiaries of Austrian banks will have to limit the ratio of new loans to local financing (ie, local deposits and international financing) to 110%. The guidelines are a response to fears that the Austrian government would have insufficient resources to bail out its biggest banks if they got into difficulty because of their exposure in central and eastern Europe.

Erste Group Bank, Raiffeisen Bank International and Hypo Alpe-Adria-Bank International had lent more than €197 billion to businesses and households in the region by the end of June, according to the Bank for International Settlements. The biggest borrowers are the Czech Republic, Romania and Hungary. The total assets of Austrian banks were €1.14 trillion at the end of June, according to the country's central bank.