The onslaught on European banks is unremitting. But who is eating their lunch? In the latest setback for banks in Europe, Moody’s Investors Service has put the subordinated debt of nearly 90 of them under review for a possible downgrade. No surprises there: European sovereigns have limited appetite or ability to support them, let alone bondholders. But the warning highlights the risk of a European credit crunch as banks shrink risk-weighted assets to meet new capital rules and as they struggle to fund those assets.

欧洲银行正遭受连绵不断的冲击。然而，是谁在吃掉他们的午餐呢？欧洲银行最新遭遇的挫折，是穆迪投资者服务(Moody’s Investors Service)把近90%欧洲银行的次级债列入了可能下调评级的观察名单。这不足为奇：欧洲当政者为这些债务提供支持的意愿或能力都十分有限，更遑论债券持有人。然而，穆迪的警告突显出，随着银行纷纷削减风险加权资产以满足新资本规定，加之他们难以为那些资产筹集资金，欧洲可能面临一场信贷紧缩。

Eurozone lenders face a double balance-sheet whammy. On the liability side, banks outside the bloc and corporate counterparties are scrutinising risk concentrations by sovereigns and banks as never before. Take Nomura: it has cut Italian assets by 80 per cent and Spanish assets by 60 per cent since the third quarter. Where creditors have not already cut lines to eurozone banks, they insist on collateral. That is only prudent. After all, in the second quarter, European banks were cold-shouldered in the US money markets. Their wholesale funding costs have soared by comparison with their Swiss, US and some UK counterparts. The squeeze has spread to retail banks: Greek bank Alpha lost 5 per cent of its deposits in the third quarter.

欧元区银行的资产负债表受到双面夹击。在负债方面，区外的银行以及企业交易对手正在前所未有地盘点各主权国家和银行的风险集中度。以野村(Nomura)为例：从第三季度以来，该公司将所持意大利资产削减了80%，西班牙资产削减了60%。目前尚未削减对欧元区银行信贷的债权人，也坚持要求提供抵押物。这纯粹是出于谨慎。毕竟欧洲银行第二季度在美国货币市场上受尽了冷遇。他们的批发融资成本相比瑞士、美国和英国的同行出现了大幅上升。紧缩已扩散到了零售银行：希腊阿尔法银行(Alpha)第三季度存款总额减少了5%。

On the asset side, French banks BNP Paribas, Crédit Agricole and Société Générale have lost terrain to US banks in the European syndicated loan market. The French trio’s near 15 per cent share is the lowest since Lehman Brothers fell, Bloomberg data show. The share of the top five US banks, including Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase, rose by 3 percentage points to 13 per cent. Japanese banks and the likes of HSBC and Standard Chartered could gain as French banks retreat in Asia.

在资产方面，法国三大银行——法国巴黎银行(BNP Paribas)、法国农业信贷银行(Crédit Agricole)和法国兴业银行(Société Générale)——在欧洲银团贷款市场上不断被美国银行夺走地盘。根据彭博(Bloomberg)的数据，法国三大银行在该市场的占有率已经向下逼近15%，为雷曼兄弟(Lehman Brothers)破产以来的最低水平。包括花旗集团(Citigroup)和摩根大通(JPMorgan Chase)在内的美国五大银行的占有率，则扩大了3个百分点，达13%。在亚洲市场上，随着法国银行退缩，日本银行和汇丰(HSBC)、渣打(Standard Chartered)等一些英国银行有望扩大地盘。

The first-order consequences of the eurozone crisis should be minimal-to-beneficial for non-eurozone lenders. But, given continuing policy disarray among the bloc’s leaders, their chances of escaping unscathed from indirect fallout look slim.

对非欧元区银行来说，欧元区危机所造成的直接影响应该是微乎其微，甚至是有利的。但鉴于欧元区领导人在政策方面始终混乱不堪，非欧元区银行完全不受间接影响的可能性很小。

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译者/何黎