过去18个月来，以主权债务危机面目登场的这场经济瘟疫肆无忌惮地蔓延，重挫欧洲经济，现在病毒又出现了危险的新突变，银行业的全面危机就在眼前。市场实际上已经认定希腊将会出现违约，欧元区基础薄弱的银行也随之陷入困境，因为他们的投资者、交易伙伴和客户纷纷撤回了短期融资。全球五大央行上周四联手向欧洲银行提供美元流动性，但这只是权宜之计。对欧元区规模最大的几家金融机构来说，雷曼兄弟式的突然崩溃或诺森罗克（Northern Rock）式的挤兑风潮仍然可能重演。

    在本轮市场异动中首先遭到重创的是法国银行，不过，意大利、西班牙、德国和英国银行同样面临着严重的资金问题。欧元区成员国必须迅速采取行动，提振投资者对处境维艰的欧洲银行业的信心。欧洲金融稳定基金（the European Financial Stability Facility）最近的拓展是个好的开始，但要想恢复投资者的信心，让他们放心的把资金存放于欧洲银行，该基金目前的规模还不够。

    本周，巴黎和纽约股市的走势首先给我们敲响了警钟，法国兴业银行（Société Générale）、法国农业信贷银行（Credit Agricole）和法国巴黎银行（BNP Paribas）——即法国三大银行的股价出现了剧烈波动，表面上是因为他们持有大量“有毒”希腊国债。周三，穆迪（Moody's）将法兴银行和农业信贷银行的债信评级各下调了一档，法国巴黎银行虽得以维持评级，但仍被列入负面观察名单。

    可是，这些银行股价的暴跌看起来不能仅用希腊国债风险敞口和评级遭下调来解释。以法兴银行为例，该行对希腊国债的风险敞口总共也只有约50亿欧元，其中还包括其希腊子公司所持有的国债。这个数字大概只相当于法兴银行总资产的1%，与“魔鬼交易员”热罗姆•凯维埃尔2009年使该行亏掉的钱差不多。

    截至周四，法兴银行过去三个月来市值累计已下跌56%，相当于该行所持希腊国债总价值的3.5倍，如果将此种暴跌解释为市场对其投资希腊国债的惩罚，那显然有些过头了。法兴银行的希腊子公司还参与了希腊私人信贷市场，这也带来了风险，该行股价下跌过度可能与这一因素不无干系。但总的来说，市场看起来是在发出信号，表明它对该行的担忧远远不局限于希腊国债风险，最值得担忧的是：与其他法国同行一样，法兴银行资本不足情况极为严重，因此可能随时崩盘。

雷曼事件的回响

    The European economic contagion that began 18 months ago as a sovereign debt crisis is dangerously mutating into a full-blown banking crisis. With Greece in de-facto market default, weak banks within the eurozone have started to fall ill as their investors, trading partners and clients pull short-term funding. The move by central banks on Thursday to provide extended U.S. dollar loans to European banks is only a stopgap measure. A Lehman Brothers-like collapse or a Northern Rock-like bank run still cannot be ruled out at this point for several of the eurozone's largest financial institutions.

    The market has hammered French banks into the ground first, but banks in Italy, Spain, Germany and the United Kingdom face serious funding issues as well. Swift action is needed on the part of eurozone members to shore up confidence in its crippled banking sector. The expansion of the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) is a good start, but more money will be needed to ensure investors that it's all clear to park their cash with European banks again.

    The alarm bells were sounded on trading floors in Paris and New York this week. Société Générale, Credit Agricole and BNP Paribas – the three major French banking institutions - have seen their share prices move violently in recent days, ostensibly because of their exposure to toxic Greek sovereign debt. On Wednesday Moody's downgraded the credit rating of Société Générale and Credit Agricole one notch and kept BNP Paribas on review for a downgrade.

    But the violent drops in their share prices seem to go beyond the banks' exposure to Greece and the credit downgrade. Take Société Générale for example. The bank's total exposure to Greek sovereign debt, including the amount held by its Greek subsidiary, is around 5 billion euros. That's equivalent to around 1% of the bank's balance sheet and around the same amount of money the bank lost at the hands of rogue trader Jérôme Kerviel in 2009.

    As punishment for its Greek sovereign investments, the market wiped out 56% off Société Générale's market value in the last three months up to Thursday. That's around 3.5 times the value of its exposure to Greek sovereign debt, which is clearly overkill. Some of the extra losses baked in to the market value haircut derive from the bank's exposure to the private Greek credit market through the bank's local subsidiary. But the market seems to be sending a signal that it is worried about much more than the bank's measly Greek exposure. The big fear is that Société Générale, along with its French banking brethren, is extremely undercapitalized and could therefore collapse at any moment.

Echoes of Lehman

    银行通过多种手段为其活动融资，涉及各种各样的货币。对银行来说，最稳定的资金来源是普通股本，其次是储户通过支票和储蓄账户存放于银行的款项。但在欧洲，尤其是在法国，银行的一大资金来源是货币市场基金、货币市场投资者和其他银行提供的短期贷款。有些时候，这类短期融资每晚都会滚存，作为资金来源它是非常不稳定的，极易引发动荡。法兴银行之所以成为欧洲最早出现股价大跌的银行，原因之一可能就在于该行73%的债务都将于一年内到期，这一比例超过了欧洲其他任何大型银行。

    雷曼兄弟2008年的崩溃给全世界上了生动的一课：依赖短期融资是极为危险的。有谣言称该行即将崩溃，交易员们纷纷撤回短期融资，几天内这家百年老店就真的破产了。同样一出戏码看起来正在欧洲重演，只不过这次是慢动作。举例来说，据德意志银行（Deutsche Bank）的统计，在8月11日之前的三个月里，美国货币市场基金已将向法国银行提供的资金减少了40%，这迫使法国银行从欧洲央行（the European Central Bank）那里寻求美元贷款，以支持其在资本市场和融资方面的活动，尽管这意味着必须承担更高的利率。

    据巴克莱银行（Barclays）统计，截至2010年底，法兴银行和法国农业信贷银行以美元计价的资产分别占到其总资产的19%和14%。根据规定，银行一定比例的资产必须以现金和高流动性证券形式持有，以在融资来源不足时保护自己，缺乏足够美元正是可能引发此种资金问题的原因之一。

    周四，欧洲央行与美联储（the U.S. Federal Reserve）和其他几大央行携手采取行动，宣布将把美元贷款的期限从七天延长到三个月，这有助于防止法国银行股继续暴跌，但只是一种临时性措施，以便给这些银行留出充裕的时间，供其出售资产或筹集永久性资本。值得一提的是，贝尔斯登（Bear Sterns）公司于2008年春季破产之后，美联储向经纪商和券商大开贴现窗口，投资者普遍认为，这一举措使所有美国银行免受流动性危机的困扰，但未能解决引发此种流动性危机、导致贝尔斯登崩溃的根源：偿付能力和信心问题。当然，美联储贴现窗没能拯救雷曼兄弟，欧洲央行的上述临时性措施也无法挽救欧洲银行——除非他们以资本打造一个强劲的缓冲带。

    2008年以来，各大银行已经加厚了这一缓冲带，即所谓的一级资本（Tier 1 capital），但法国银行行动缓慢，因此也就更容易受到短期融资波动的影响。法国农业信贷银行这方面的表现是全欧大型银行中最差的，2007年上半年其一级资本率为8.1%，到2011年上半年也只不过提高到了8.9%；同一期间，法兴银行将一级资本率从6.4%提高至9.3%，但仍徘徊在一级资本率最低的行列。相比之下，瑞士银行巨头瑞银集团（UBS）在同一期间将一级资本率从10.8%提高到了16.1%的高水平。

    一家银行的一级资本率到底该有多高？这倒没有什么通行的标准，关键是要足够高，使投资者信赖银行，相信它们能够抵御未来出现的亏损。

紧急充实资本

    Banks fund their activities in many ways and through a myriad of currencies. The most reliable source of funding for a bank is common equity capital, followed by the money received from depositors through checking and savings accounts. But in Europe, especially in France, a large chunk of funding comes in the form of short-term loans from prime money funds, money market accounts and other banks. This short-term funding is rolled over nightly in some cases, making it an extremely unreliable and volatile source of funding. One reason Société Générale may be the first bank in Europe hit hard is because 73% of its total debt has maturities of less than one year, the highest ratio of any large bank in Europe.

    The Lehman collapse in 2008 showed the world how dangerous it was to depend on short-term funding. Rumors of the bank's imminent collapse caused dealers to pull their short-term funding and within days the bank was insolvent. A similar situation seems to be taking place in Europe, but in slow motion. For example, U.S. money market funds have cut their funding levels to French banks by 40% in the three months through August 11th, according to Deutsche Bank (DB). This has forced the French banks to take out U.S. dollar loans from the European Central Bank at a higher interest rate in order to have enough U.S. dollars to fund their capital markets and financing activities.

    Société Générale and Credit Agricole's U.S. dollar-denominated assets represent 19% and 14%, respectively, of their total balance sheet at the end of 2010, according to Barclays. Banks are required to hold a certain percentage of their assets in cash and other liquid securities to protect themselves from funding shortfalls that could be caused by not having enough dollars on hand.

    On Thursday the ECB, in coordination with the U.S. Federal Reserve and other central banks, said that it would extend maturities on its dollar loans from seven days to three months. This has helped to quell the violent downswing in French bank stocks, but it is only a temporary measure to give the banks enough time to sell assets and raise permanent capital. It should be noted that the Fed discount window was opened fully to broker dealers after Bear Sterns fell in the spring of 2008. It was widely believed that a liquidity crisis had been taken off the table for all U.S. banks, but it failed to address the root causes of the liquidity crisis that took Bear down to begin with: solvency and confidence. Of course, the Fed discount window was not enough to save Lehman Brothers and this temporary measure by the ECB won't save European banks either if they fail to build a strong capital buffer.

    Since 2008, banks have beefed up this buffer, known as Tier 1 capital, but the French banks have been slow to do so, making them more vulnerable to a short-term funding blip. Credit Agricole is the worst performer of the large banks in Europe in this regard, increasing its Tier 1 capital ratio from 8.1% in the first half of 2007 to just 8.9% in the first half of 2011. Société Générale has increased its Tier 1 ratio from 6.4% to 9.3% over the same period, but it remains at the bottom of the pack. In contrast, Suisse banking giant UBS has increased its Tier 1 ratio from 10.8% to a whopping 16.1% over the same period.

   There is no magic number when it comes to the amount of Tier 1 capital a bank should hold. It just needs to be high enough in which investors feel confident that the bank can withstand future losses.

Urgent recapitalization

    主权债务危机已经演变为信心危机，而法国银行首当其冲，成了替罪羔羊，但如果这场危机失控，遭殃的绝对不止它们几家。在欧洲，几乎所有大银行都持有大量欧元区国债，而且与美国和亚洲银行相比，它们所持存款与发放在外的贷款之间的比例更低。

    巴克莱银行的研究显示，欧洲最大的14家银行中，有9家为投资目的而持有的非流动性净贷款超过了其掌握的存款，使它们必须依赖资本市场波动剧烈的短期融资。法兴银行的贷款-存款比例高达130%，迫使其依赖外部资本，这是非常危险的。不过法兴还远远不是这方面表现最差的，意大利联合圣保罗银行（Intesa Sanpaolo）的比例最高，达到惊人的160%；意大利联合信贷银行（Unicredit）以及英国的劳埃德银行（Lloyds）紧随其后，都达到了149%。按绝对数字来说，这三家银行贷款与存款之间的差额分别达到1,390亿欧元、1,850亿欧元和2,140亿欧元。

    今年8月，国际货币基金组织（IMF）总裁、法国前财长克里斯蒂娜•拉加德在美国怀俄明州举行的全球央行会议上发表了演讲，强调欧洲银行需要“紧急充实资本”，“这是斩断危机蔓延链条的关键”。

    各大银行的资金缺口到底有多大？目前这个问题还没有定论。上周，国际货币基金组织泄露出来的一份文件指出，欧洲银行可能需要2,750亿美元资金，而基金经理人们向《财富》杂志（Fortune）表示，他们根据模型计算的结果约为5,000亿美元。计算方法基本上就是将欧洲银行持有的欧洲外围成员国的国债累加。不过不管具体数字到底是多少，它必须足够大才行，否则无法重振市场信心。美国2008年设立了问题资产救助计划（TARP），用以为银行业注资，其规模达7,000亿美元；而在欧洲，一旦欧洲金融稳定基金（EFSF）扩容获得欧元区全部17个成员国议会的批准，其规模将达到4,400亿欧元，约合6,000亿美元。

    欧洲金融稳定基金与问题资产救助计划并不完全一样，因为前者的职责是为挥霍无度的政府注资，而不是拯救银行。不过，一旦某国政府获得该基金的援助，它就能转而向麻烦缠身的银行注资。希腊可以用该基金的援助偿还国债及弥补预算赤字，而法国则可以用来向法兴银行注资。

    值得担忧的是，市场可能已经将欧洲金融稳定基金扩大获批准这一利好考虑在内。果真如此，市场向欧洲诸国财长发出的信号就很清晰了：6,000亿美元尚不足以重振投资者对金融体系的信心。问题资产救助计划的缔造者之一、美国财长蒂莫西•盖特纳今天到访波兰，出席一场欧洲财长之间的非正式会议。他的目的可能是帮助欧洲同行们认识到，将金融稳定基金用作重振欧元区信心的工具大有裨益。如果该基金能据此重新设计，将有助于缓解投资者的忧虑情绪。

    当然，问题资产救助计划式的欧洲金融稳定基金无法解决欧洲主权债务危机，正如问题资产救助计划本身难以解决美国房地产危机，该基金的作用在于重振市场信心，防止银行业遭遇挤兑，给所有相关方面喘息之机，让他们腾出手来整顿内务。最终，要彻底解决欧元区的问题，依然少不了结构性的真正变革。

    欧洲现在有机会推行真正的结构性改革——将欧元区财政与货币政策统一化，防止新的主权债务危机爆发。问题是，欧元区17个国家能否产生足够强的政治意愿，迈出如此大胆的一步？对此，我们尚不得而知。如果做不到这一点，几年之后这块大陆可再次回到原点。

    译者：小宇

    The sovereign debt crisis has evolved into a crisis of confidence, with the French banks being served up as whipping boy, but they are certainly not going to be the last if left unchecked. In Europe, nearly all the major banks have large eurozone sovereign debt holdings. They also hold fewer deposits in relation to their outstanding loans compared with U.S. and Asian banks.

    Barclays found that nine of the largest 14 European banks have illiquid net loans held for investment that exceeded the amount of deposits on hand, making them dependent on volatile funding from the capital markets. Société Générale had a loan-to-deposit ratio of around 130%, making it dangerously dependent on outside funding. But it was far from the worst offender in the group. Italian banks Intesa Sanpaolo, with 160%, and Unicredit, with a 149%, along with the UK's Lloyds, also with 149%, had worst ratios, equating to an absolute deficit of deposits to loans amounting to 139 billion euros, 185 billion euros and 214 billion euros, respectively.

    In August, Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund and the former French finance minister, said in a speech at a banker conference this August in Wyoming that European banks were in need of "urgent recapitalization." "This is key to cutting the chains of contagion," she said.

    It is unclear how much the funding shortfall is at this point. A leaked IMF report last week suggested that European banks would need around $275 billion. Money managers tell Fortune that their models suggest somewhere around $500 billion, which is derived by essentially adding up all the peripheral sovereign debt held by European banks. Whatever the number, it will need to be really big to bring confidence back. The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), set up in 2008 to recapitalize the US banking sector, was $700 billion. In Europe, the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) will be 440 billion euros or around $600 billion, once its enlargement is ratified by the parliaments of all 17 members of the eurozone.

    Now, the EFSF isn't exactly TARP, as its mandate is to recapitalize profligate governments, not banks. But once the nation receives the cash, they can then turn around and inject it into their troubled banks. So Greece could use the cash to pay its loans and fill its budget deficit while France could inject cash into Société Générale.

    The fear is that the market is already pricing in passage of the EFSF. If so, then it is sending a clear signal to European finance ministers that $600 billion is not enough to restore confidence in the system. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, one of the architects of the TARP program, is in Poland today attending an informal meeting of European finance ministers. He could be there to help the Europeans see the benefits of using the EFSF as a vehicle to restore confidence in the eurozone. If the fund is repackaged in that way, it may help to ease investor fears.

    To be sure, a TARP-like EFSF will not solve the European sovereign debt crisis, just as TARP has done little to fix the U.S. housing crisis. The program will only serve to restore confidence in order to avoid a run on the banking sector and to give all parties some breathing room to get their houses in order. Eventually, real structural changes will need to take place to fix the troubles of the eurozone.

    Europe has the opportunity to devise real structural changes to the eurozone that would prevent another sovereign debt crisis, namely the centralization of the zone's fiscal and monetary policy. It remains to be seen if there is strong enough will in the 17 capitals of the eurozone to take such a bold step. Failure to do so could put the continent right back where they started in just a couple years time.