EU banks built up own-sovereign risks through Covid crisis

European banks’ holdings of debt issued by their host governments increased roughly 12% to €1.73 trillion ($2.11 trillion) over the first half of 2020, regulator data shows.

Own-government holdings increased faster than total sovereign exposures, which rose 10% to €3.81 trillion as of June 30, according to the European Banking Authority’s (EBA) latest transparency exercise.

The average ratio of own-government bonds to total sovereign exposures, at almost 54%, was slightly down from 56% at end