欧洲：雷曼式破产幽灵徘徊不去

    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.