The world’s largest banks just set aside a whopping $42.2bn to weather the economic fallout from the pandemic crisis. It still may not be enough.
“Most large corporate and investment banks were conservative with their first quarter loan loss provisions,” Amrit Shahani, head of research at data provider Coalition, told Financial News. Despite that “large” total, he said, “we’re expecting a significant uptick in the second quarter — as much as 30% to 40% more than in the first three months of 2020.” That would equal about $59.1bn at the upper end.