From the ECB’s Financial Stability Review, November 2016
Box 6
Assessing the spillover potential between banks, shadow banks and insurance companies in Europe
Financial distress in the non-bank financial sector can be transmitted to the banking sector through a number of direct and indirect transmission channels. First, the banking sector may be directly exposed to non-bank financial institutions through equity investment or credit claims. Credit claims often arise in connection with prime brokerage services through which non-bank financial firms increase their leverage. In addition, the liquidity credit lines that provide non-financial firms with a backstop against an outflow of their short-term liabilities could also give rise to a significant exposure. Second, non-bank financial institutions play an important role in the funding of the banking sector by investing in bank debt securities and providing liquidity through secured money markets, as well as through the provision of collateral. Third, banks and non-bank financial institutions are also indirectly interconnected through common exposures to assets. Distress in one of these sectors may give rise to asset fire sales, which would depress the prices of assets held by the other sector and, through mark-to-market accounting, adversely impact the profits and capital of that sector.
