Financial performance of European banks in the context of the COVID-19 crisis

Mazars has analysed how the pandemic is affecting the 2020 half-year results of 13 European banks publishing their financial statements under the IFRS framework.

Our analysis, based on publicly available information from the interim reports of the banks, shows that most banks experienced a significant decrease in their net profit after tax and in their operating income before ECL for the first six months of 2020 against the corresponding period in 2019. At the same time, all banks experienced a substantial increase of their ECL Charge.

If the ECL allowance has increased for all banks during H1 2020 (+22% average), much more than the gross credit exposure, the extent of the increase varies from one bank to another.

Banks also applied different strategies to the change in weightings allocated to negative and positive macro-economic scenarios.

Look at our key findings to see how banks are performing in this unprecedented environment.