Big European and US banks cut $280bn of complex assets

The largest European and US banks have halved their holdings of hard-to-value assets in the five years since 2013.

The 35 largest European Union banks and eight US global systemically important banks (G-Sibs) cut their Level 3 assets – illiquid, hard-to-value instruments – to $276 billion from $556 billion between end-2013 and end-2017. European firms cut $130 billion over this period and US banks $150 billion. 

The lion’s share of cuts occurred in 2015, when European and US banks unloaded $54