15 September 2022

The European Banking Authority (EBA) today published its annual Funding Plans Report. 159 banks submitted their funding plans for a forecast period from 2022 to 2024. The Report highlights strong deposit growth and increase of public sector sources of funding in 2021. The plans show banks’ intentions to increase market-based funding over forecast period, while the gap between planned debt issuances and maturing targeted longer-term refinancing operations (TLTRO) in the coming two years remains significant.

  • Banks’ total assets increased by 3% in 2021, mainly driven by a surge in cash balances at central banks. This reflects loan volume growth as well as central bank support measures in response to the pandemic.
  • Banks’ use of public sector funding such as the European Central Bank's (ECB’s) TLTRO increased in 2021. Public sector funding contributed almost 9% of banks’ total funding in 2021. Banks forecast that this share to decline to about 2.5% of total funding by 2023.
  • Strong deposit growth continued in 2021. By the end of the year deposits represented 76% of banks’ total funding. For the period 2022 to 2024 banks are expecting deposit growth to decline to 3% per year.
  • The funding plans indicate that banks intend to increase reliance on market-based funding by 11% over the three-year forecast period. Despite this planned increase, the gap between debt issuances and maturing TLTRO volumes remains significant for 2023 and 2024.
  • The difference between interest rates on loans - to both households and non-financial corporations – and deposits has continued to decline. The average difference was 2.04% in 2021 compared to 2.22% one year earlier. Most banks expect that these spreads will increase during 2022.
  • It remains to be seen to what extent banks will further adjust their funding plans given the notable change in economic- and market conditions since banks submitted data for this report.

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