Own-country risk makes up 42% of EU bank sovereign exposures

European banks prefer investing in debt issued by their host governments, but hold a smaller share in own-country exposures then in 2018, Risk Quantum analysis shows.

Lenders included in the European Union-wide transparency exercise had €4.1 trillion ($4.5 trillion) of sovereign bonds as of end-June 2019. Of this amount, 42% was debt issued by their home governments.

Polish banks held the most home government debt as a percentage of their total, at 96.6%. This is down slightly from 98.6% at