Own-sovereign risk higher in peripheral eurozone countries

Banks in countries most affected by the eurozone sovereign crisis – Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain – hold more own-country risk as a percentage of their government bond portfolios than their EU peers, though they did pare exposures in 2019, data from the European Union-wide transparency exercise shows. 

In aggregate, the 34 lenders in the peripheral euorzone countries covered by the exercise held €873.7 billion ($986.7 billion) of sovereign exposures as of end-2019. Of this amount