A word of warning. Today, Bloomberg has published a deeply troubling report from the Financial Times: the German multinational Siemens AG withdrew 500 million euros from a French bank last week and deposited the funds with the European Central Bank.
The FT quotes an anonymous source with first-hand knowledge of the matter. According to this person, the reason for this mistrust is the lack of solvency of this French bank, the name of which has also not been disclosed. But the surprise does not end there, as Siemens already has between €4 and €6 billion deposited in one-week term deposits with the European Central Bank.
It should be noted that France’s second and third largest banks (Crédit Agricole and Société Générale) had their credit ratings downgraded just last week. There are also rumours circulating that the French government is pressuring BNP Paribas to take over Société Générale, which is the most likely cause of its stock market collapse in recent weeks. After all, having to take on the bank with the most OTC and guaranteed structured products on the continent is enough to make your ears tremble, not to mention the share price. To paraphrase this article from Cotizalia, Société Générale is like the European Lehman Brothers. And if the French government is pressuring BNP to take over Société Générale, just a few days after Germany announced that it has a plan to recapitalise its banks and prevent them from going bust, it means that something very serious is about to happen to the French banking sector.
French banks are up to their ears in Greek debt. The danger is so obvious that even Moody’s has had to face the facts, downgrading Credit Agricole and Société Générale. It has also placed BNP Paribas itself on negative review.
However, according to a source «close» to the bank, it is not BNP Paribas from which the 500 million euros belonging to Siemens has been withdrawn. For their part, neither Siemens nor the ECB have said a word on the matter.
At this point, it is worth noting for those whose attention has already wandered that only a handful of «selected» companies are authorised to make direct deposits with the ECB.
Via Bloomberg