Financials Unshackled | Weekly Briefing of 16th Nov 2025 (PTSB Sale Process, Bank Regulation - and Much More)

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Welcome to the Financials Unshackled Weekly Briefing of 16th November 2025 - your weekly pack for critique and curation of key banking developments over the last week. It was a relatively quiet week in the context of major newsflow (but there were lots of interesting developments nonetheless) and I have chosen the PTSB sale process as the main story.

Photo by Roberto Navarro on Unsplash

✂️ What’s In This Note ✂️

In-Depth: PTSB sale process in focus

UK: Pushback against stringent capital rules; BoE Policy Statement on Leverage Ratio; BoE stablecoins consultation; UK Finance mortgage arrears and possessions; FCA CEO on mortgage market; Atom Bank AT1; BARC euro AT1; BARC US Cards n focus; HSBA Chair; Iwoca for sale?; LLOY staff data and Curve acquisition; MTRO pursuit of growth; Monzo tensions; Nationwide branches commitment and Part VII transfer; OakNorth acquisitive; TSB 3Q25 update; NWG director share sales

Ireland: FIBI conference perspectives; CBI retail interest rates update; AIBG NPLs disposal?; PTSB agrees a NPLs sale; Revolut postponing mortgages launch; AIBG/BIRG/PTSB shareholding changes

Europe: Regulators defend competitiveness of European banks; Santander Executive Chair comments; SRB MREL Dashboard

Global: Banks’ AI spend; SRT issuance

To unshackle your understanding of the week’s banking developments please read on to explore critiques, curated insights, and your calendar for the week ahead.

🔎 The Critique 🔎

In this section I dissect the week’s most significant banking development(s) / theme(s) of interest across key regions as appropriate, cutting through the noise to get to the crux of the issue.

🇮🇪 PTSB Sale Process Updates & Perspectives 🇮🇪

What Happened?

The Permanent TSB (PTSB) sale process received considerable attention in the Irish media this week. On analyst views, the press picked up on: i) RBC analysts’ warning that the bank will struggle to find a buyer willing to pay more than €2 a share (or c.€1.1bn) to acquire it; and ii) Goodbody’s refreshed €4.23 price target for PTSB (€2.3bn), underpinned by what it sees as scope for substantial cost synergies among other factors (also note that Carraighill recently set out an assessment that a fair value for PTSB could be €2.26bn or more, which was covered in the press). On potential buyers: i) the Irish Independent picked up on RBC’s assessment that PTSB is unlikely to be attractive to an international bank and that private equity is far less likely to pay a premium given limited synergy potential; ii) The Sunday Times suggests that limited buyer interest is evident - referencing Bankinter and BBVA’s moves to play down suggestions that they could acquire it and KBC’s Head of Investor Relations confirmation that the bank is “…not going to go back to Ireland” (though the article discusses just a small number of players, the Bankinter CEO’s comments were known prior to the commencement of the sale process, and it is hardly surprising that KBC is unlikely to re-enter the Irish market); and iii) most significantly perhaps, the Business Post reports that Eamon Waters, Founder of Sretaw which has a 7.04% shareholding in PTSB, has noted that “We are long-term investors in PTSB…We are very open to stay invested with the new owners if that is something they wish.”.

Unshackled Perspectives - Could the ‘Vultures’ Swoop?!

• Like with any bank valuation assessment there are a range of views. RBC’s view is an outlier and other international analysts are more upbeat. Friday’s closing market price of 319c per share (market cap €1.77bn) tells you that the market does not agree with RBC’s view - and, to state the obvious, the current valuation clearly embeds a discount for uncertainty in relation to whether a sale will be achieved and at what price. However, given the >30% surge in PTSB’s share price since the commencement of a formal sale process was announced, it’s a long way back down if PTSB fails to secure a buyer at an acceptable price - with the Board and the principal shareholder’s credibility in the fireplace at that point.

• Valuation science aside, what matters is whether there will be sufficient competitive tension in the process to secure a good price for the asset. I set out detailed thoughts in a post on 31st October here:

  Financials Unshackled Special Edition | Issue 67 (31st Oct 2025) - Banking M&A: PTSB In Play

  - and I remain of the view that “…it seems extremely unlikely that the Board is not aware of any interest before formally announcing a sale process. Putting a company into play can have destabilising effects for employees and other stakeholders and it would seem reckless to do this in a non-emergency situation if there is not a known level of interest.”. However, it feels like nerves are high. Sretaw’s stated openness to remaining involved seems designed to eke out / help cement private equity interest. But I would be very surprised if the State is willing to sell to PE (though see final bullet point below for a qualification here). It is my view, in the interests of a transparent process here (and we have all seen the consequences of shamefully less than transparent processes in the past), that the Finance Minister should make clear his position on private equity without delay. The worst thing that could happen here is that PE ends up getting strung along in a bid to get the price up.

• As noted in last week’s Weekly Briefing I can see the many attractions of PTSB to an international acquirer. To the extent that there is sufficient interest (which I am inclined to think there should be) amongst trade acquirers then the State should be able to extract the right price for this asset. However, my gut tells me that a bit of a bet may have been placed here - it should have been well-acknowledged for some time amongst potentially interested parties that the State would look to go down this route with respect to its 57.5% shareholding in PTSB (it’s the only bank position they would entertain selling to a third party buyer in my view, it facilitates a full exit far more swiftly for a shareholder who doesn’t want to be a longer-term investor in the banks, it can potentially be leveraged politically as a move that supports increased competition in Irish banking for the benefit of the consumer et al.). Yet no formal approach has emerged - it seems. Only the key shareholder and the PTSB Board know whether or not there is much interest - and, the absence of any formal approaches aside, we don’t know what private conversations have happened. But I have that niggling feeling in my stomach that there might have been just one known potential trade acquirer with clear interest (there surely must be at least one…) at the stage of the decision to commence a formal sale process (when I saw this article in The Sunday Times article a few weeks ago, my gut reaction was that it was orchestrated in an attempt to get Bankinter to show its hand - and, hardly coincidentally, came just before the 3Q trading update when Bankinter would be fielding analyst questions) - and that a bet has been taken that more will enter the fray with a ‘for sale’ sign hanging over PTSB’s front door. I appreciate I am in the zone of speculation but it’s some food for thought. And, as a parting thought, if trade buyer interest doesn’t materialise in an acceptable offer, could the State get comfortable selling its shareholding to what mainstream politicians like to term ‘vulture funds’ (a term that greatly aggravates me) in a bid to avoid embarrassment? My view, as noted in the 31st October note, remains, i.e., I expect that PE will be invited to participate in the process, with everyone in a decision-making role deferring a call on their actual suitability until a more convenient time. It looks set to be an interesting process.

📌 The Curation 📌

In this section I collate select key banking developments across key regions, cutting through the noise to get to the nub of the issue in cases.

🇬🇧 UK Unfiltered - My Top Picks 🇬🇧

1️⃣ Sector Snippets:

• The FT reports here that Michael Roberts, Head of Corporate and Institutional Banking at HSBC (HSBA) and Stephen Dainton, Head of Investment Bank Management at Barclays (BARC) informed the House of Lords Financial Services Regulation Committee on Tuesday that stringent capital rules are putting them at a disadvantage relative to fast-growing private credit firms. These comments form part of a wider lobbying effort on the part of the sector to see relaxed capital (and, potentially, leverage ratio) requirements in view of the regulatory loosening at play in the US - though BARC and HSBA are clearly the most affected lenders by far from an international competitiveness perspective. All eyes on the results of the FPC’s Capital Framework Review on Tuesday 2nd December - and, as I wrote last week, I suspect major UK banks are hoping for a minimum one percentage point reduction in target CET1 ratios on the back of the outcome of this FPC Review, with the CCyB potentially set for a significant restructuring. Let’s see - but, to the extent that’s where it ends up, it would be highly meaningful for: i) RoTE augmentation; and ii) surplus CET1 crystallisation to be deployed towards lending / M&A / shareholder distributions.

• The BoE’s PRA published its Policy Statement on the ‘Leverage Ratio: changes to the retail deposits threshold for application of the requirement’ on Wednesday 12th November here. The PRA has increased the threshold from £50bn to £75bn and introduces a three-year averaging mechanism for the calculation of firms’ retail deposits. This is helpful for smaller banks and building societies who have more than £50bn but less than £75bn of retail deposits - and it is also helpful in the context of the removal of another obstacle to scaling to a certain size.

• The BoE launched its consultation on regulating systemic stablecoins on Monday - see news release here, consultation paper here, and associated Financial Stability paper here. There has been a slight softening in its approach (in comparison to what was set out in CP25/14) but the crypto industry verdict is that it could inhibit the growth of stablecoins in the UK - with the limit of £20,000 holdings per person and the requirement for issuers to hold 40% of the assets backing the coins with the BoE understood to be in particular focus, according to Reuters here.

• UK Finance published mortgage arrears and possessions data for 3Q25 on Thursday (press release here and report here). The trends are favourable from a banking sector standpoint with a continued reduction in arrears - with the number of homeowner mortgages in arrears -4% q/q and the number of BTL mortgages in arrears -8% q/q. The overall proportion of mortgages in arrears is low - at 0.97% of homeowner mortgages and 0.54% of BTL mortgages, which bodes well for continued strength in bank asset quality.

• FCA CEO Nikhil Rathi spoke on Tuesday on how the FCA’s Mortgage Rule Review is focused on improving credit access and how the regulator is working to build a mortgage market that supports the financial wellbeing of customers and makes homeownership more accessible. Speech can be accessed here.

2️⃣Company Snippets:

• Atom Bank has successfully completed its inaugural AT1 issuance (see company LinkedIn post here) - £50m of notes priced at a coupon of 9.5%, which implies significant price tightening since Atom’s inaugural Tier 2 notes issuance in October 2024 which saw £50m of notes priced at a coupon of 11.5%. Atom’s development of a more sophisticated capital stack is interesting. Atom’s investor base will undoubtedly be watching closely for updates on the progression of its IRB application - with the CEO noting in the latest annual accounts here (which were published on 10th July) that “We are completing the engineering of our Gen2 IRB models and preparing our Phase 2 IRB application for submission by the end of the year”. In the interests of transparency I wish to note that SeaPoint Insights has provided paid-for services to Atom Bank in the past but not within the last 12 months.

• Bloomberg reported on Monday here that Barclays (BARC) saw elevated investor interest for its recent €1.5bn AT1 issuance - its first euro AT1 issuance since 2014. Orders of €8.1bn meant the issue was 5.4x oversubscribed and the coupon on the notes was set at 6.125% following IPT in the 6.5-6.625% range.

• In a further note on Barclays (BARC), it was interesting to note that a proposed settlement has been reached between payment networks Visa and Mastercard and merchants in the context of a 20-year battle (though it remains subject to judiciary approval). Essentially, the payment networks have agreed to drop the rule that forces a store that accepts one Visa credit card to accept all Visa credit cards and so forth. This means that merchants can now reject cards that charge the merchant a higher fee per transaction (there is no cap on credit card interchange fees in the US). The higher-fee cards are typically airline and hotel rewards cards (though premium cards make up a highly significant share of the overall US credit cards market nowadays it must be said). This is of significant relevance to BARC’s US Cards business given it has a strong focus on co-branded airline cards particularly. However, the jury is out as to whether the networks’ decision to drop the rule will in fact present any real impact as merchants could lose significant business if they reject cards - and the compromise achieved between the networks and the merchants mean it is not as straightforward as simply rejecting cards on an ad-hoc basis, i.e., credit cards will fall into three wide buckets that merchants can choose to accept or reject, and, as The Wall Street Journal notes here, “…the most popular cards that make up a majority of spending are grouped together in one category, making rejection a risky prospect for a store”.

• Sky News reports here this weekend that George Osborne is among a trio of candidates (alongside Naguib Kheraj and Kevin Sneader) shortlisted for the HSBC (HSBA) Chair role. While this has likely come as a surprise to many given Osborne’s lack of banking experience as well as the fact that he does not have experience as a plc Chair, his intellectual heft is well-recognised - and, more importantly perhaps, his diplomatic skills, including his previous success when in government at forging close links with China in the context of UK-China trade ambitions, would likely be especially useful.

• Reuters reported here on Thursday that the small business lender Iwoca, in which Augmentum Fintech (AUGM) is a shareholder, is exploring a potential sale.

• The FT covered Lloyds Banking Group’s (LLOY) use of data from 30,000 staff bank accounts on an aggregated basis to inform the lender in the context of its pay negotiations with unions here. Questions have been raised in relation to LLOY’s decision to process this personal data for the purposes of its own commercial interests. One thing for sure in my view is that it does nothing to support customer trust. On a separate LLOY-related note, Sky News reported here on Friday that the bank has finally struck a deal to acquire Curve for £120m.

• Interesting to read comments made by Mark Davies, Director of Commercial Banking at Metro Bank (MTRO) in Bridging&Commercial here in relation to the build-out of the bank’s commercial lending business. Davies notes that the bank needs to recruit more specialists to deliver on its lending objectives. No surprise there but Davies does highlight the challenge here as the segment scales: “What we are looking to do is to continue to invest in new colleagues on a regular basis, but not compromise on experience and that specialist capability…And of course that becomes more and more of a finite resource to tap into, and a competitive marketplace to tap into as well.”. He also notes that a number of other mid-tier players have entered the specialist commercial lending market over the last 12 months too - pointing to increased competition. I did note MTRO’s slightly lower Corporate/Commercial/SME credit approved pipeline of £750m at end-3Q (versus £800m at end-2Q) in last week’s Weekly Briefing. It is important not to overanalyse a single datapoint (especially given seasonal factors, perhaps - and a relatively small q/q delta in any event) but, given the importance of growth in target lending segments to the delivery of MTRO’s target returns, it will be important to see continued strong net lending expansion delivery within acceptable cost and expected loan loss parameters. Finally, on a separate though somewhat interlinked note, it was interesting to read on Friday here that MTRO is reducing rates across residential mortgage and BTL products as well as the fact that MTRO is re-entering the 80% LTV BTL market - as the bank remains focused on delivering growth and margin enhancement through expanding its Specialist Mortgages book.

• The Times reports here this weekend that shareholders in Monzo are understood to be surprised at the sudden departure of the former CEO TS Anil and are said to be considering the appointment of a legal firm “to review their options”.

• This Is Money reported here that Nationwide Building Society has promised to keep its entire 696-strong branch network open until 2030 - which CEO Debbie Crosbie has characterised (in a write-up for the newspaper here) as a “statement of values”, going on to note that “We’ve seen a 28 per cent rise in new current accounts being opened in branches, while new savings account openings in branch have jumped by more than 30 per cent. Indeed, market data shows that 68 per cent of all branch sales in the UK were through a Nationwide branch.”. I noted in a Specials note on Nationwide on 14th August here that “Nationwide notes that its branch network is fundamental to its customer support (notably, 35% of new current account openings took place in a branch in the first half of the 2024/25 financial year), underpinned by its Branch Promise which has now been extended to include VMUK. This is a differentiated approach in the context of large-scale retail banking players.”. Separately, I note that Clydesdale Bank plc issued a RNS on Friday here noting that, on Monday 3rd November, Clydesdale Bank and Nationwide made an application at the High Court for the transfer of banking business under Part VII of FSMA. The Scheme Document can be located here (see here for the Scheme Summary or ‘Explanatory Statement, here for the Legal Notice, and here for a Q&A booklet) and important dates are set out here - with the Court hearing expected to take place on 23rd February 2026 and the transfer, if approved by the Court, expected to be effected on 2nd April 2026. Nationwide said on 29th May (at the stage of publication of its full year results to end-March) that the Part VII process was expected to take until 2026/27. The expected completion in April 2026 indicates that Nationwide is ‘ahead of schedule’ in this regard.

• MergerMarket reports here that OakNorth’s Head of Corporate Development and Investor Relations and its Corporate Affairs Director noted in a joint interview that the lender’s immediate focus is on acquisitive growth in both the UK and the US rather than an IPO.

• TSB reported Statutory PBT of £270.6m for the nine months to end-September 2025 (9M25), +38.2% y/y (see Thursday’s 3Q results announcement here) - driven by modest income growth (+3.0% y/y) and a material reduction in operating costs (-7.5% y/y). The end-3Q25 CET1 capital ratio was 16.3%. As I noted in my detailed write-up on the Santander/TSB deal on 7th July here, while the deal is a major cost extraction play, TSB management has already been delivering in this regard.

3️⃣Shareholding changes of note:

• NatWest Group (NWG) Director share sales: Katie Murray (Group CFO) and Paul Thwaite (Group CEO), under the terms of the irrevocable Trading Plans announced on 1st September, sold 7,000 and 8,000 shares respectively at a price of 604.2p per share for gross proceeds of c.£42k and c.£48k respectively on 10th November; ii) Robert Begbie (CEO, NatWest Commercial & Institutional) sold 19,000 shares at a price of 607p per share for gross proceeds of c.£115k on 10th November; and iii) Scott Marcar (Group CIO) sold 19,125 shares at a price of 601.64p per share for gross proceeds of c.£115k on 7th November.

🇮🇪 Ireland Unvarnished - My Top Picks 🇮🇪

1️⃣ Sector Snippets:

• The Federation of International Banks Ireland (FIBI) held its annual conference ‘Competing for Growth – Ireland’s Future as a Global Financial Services Hub’ in Dublin on Wednesday 12th November, which I attended. The key focus was on competitiveness and how the political and regulatory system need to work with the industry to rebuild Ireland’s weakening competitive position. As I wrote in the Business Post here this weekend on the conference discussions: “…the prevailing regulatory philosophy in Europe is that of safety first. We can never eliminate every risk from the system – nor should that be the objective, because regulation has an opportunity cost that Ireland simply cannot afford. Indeed, Brian Hayes, the BPFI chief executive, summed it up neatly in his closing speech, noting that the danger with the pursuit of extreme resilience is that it essentially handicaps the industry’s ability to function effectively within both the domestic economy and the international markets.”.

• The Central Bank of Ireland (CBI) published its Retail Interest Rates update for September 2025 on Wednesday 12th November here and an excerpt from the release, neatly summarising key movements, is shown below.

  

  As I have previously written, an important point to flesh out is that, while new household term deposit rates are above the euro area average (1.93% versus 1.78%) and new NFC term deposit rates are below the euro area average (1.66% versus 1.91%), it is important to remember that the relevance of this from a banking sector net interest margin (NIM) perspective is extremely limited for two key reasons: i) the percentage of deposit stock attributable to term deposits in the Irish market is very low compared to other jurisdictions (over 90% of the listed banks’ deposit funding is represented by current accounts and demand accounts, i.e., overnight product); and ii) deposit churn (or flow to term) has been minimal (talking about deposit beta as rates come down is pointless in my view - just look at the absolute quantities of flow to term) and is clearly slowing. For context, on my calculations, AIB Group (AIBG) and Bank of Ireland Group (BIRG) paid in the region of just c.25bps of their entire stock of ROI deposits in 1H25. I think this context should be provided in the release.

  On a final note, Box A in the release compares the interest rates on outstanding mortgage loans held in non-bank entities - unsurprisingly they are higher than for the banks (3.78% versus 3.44%). That’s mainly because the regulatory system pressed the banks to dispose of NPLs to non-banks, i.e., the risk has shifted. Indeed, recent soundings from regulators on risks presented by NBFIs more broadly in a European / global context are hilarious in my view - as I wrote here on 27th October 2024: “…many will argue that it is regulators across the globe who have, at least in part, driven this [growth in private credit] by tightening bank capital / broader bank regulatory requirements without regulating the entities that have absorbed the assets that have, consequentially, shifted out of the regulated banking sphere”. Indeed, Raghav Khanna at Oaktree Capital remarked on Thursday on The Insight by Oaktree here that the growth in private credit stemmed from “the post-GFC regulatory changes that forced banks to retrench…particularly from the low IG space”. This is the problem with a siloed approach to regulations - you need someone to look at the big picture.

2️⃣Company Snippets:

• The Irish Times reported here on Friday that sources have indicated to the newspaper that Cerberus is set to acquire a portfolio of NPLs (made up of personal loans, mortgages, small business facilities and commercial property debt) from AIB Group (AIBG). The portfolio is reported to have had an original combined value of c.€500m (I am assuming this means the gross position). To the extent that any such transaction completes it is a positive for AIBG in the context of its ongoing NPL reduction efforts.

• Permanent TSB (PTSB) announced on Friday the sale of a residential mortgage NPL portfolio with a gross balance sheet value of €76m and RWA density of c.63%. 55% are trackers, 35% are variable rate mortgages, and 10% are fixed rate mortgages - and PTSB will continue to service the loans for a period of up to six months. The transaction is expected to increase the Total Capital Ratio by c.10bps once fully completed and, importantly, alleviates the negative capital impact of regulatory calendar provisioning associated with the portfolio, which based on existing risk weights and capital requirements is equivalent to c.€0.5bn of new lending. The deal reduces PTSB’s end-1H25 NPL ratio by c.40bps to c.1.4% on a pro forma basis and PTSB does not envisage any further loan sales in the near-term. All in all, this is a positive deal for the bank and is testament to the strength of the management team (and predecessor management) in achieving a remarkable turnaround in asset quality through Balance Sheet cleansing efforts over a multi-year period.

• The Irish Times reports this weekend here that Revolut is expected to postpone its Irish mortgages launch until 2026. This is not surprising given the comments made by Beatrice Cossa-Dumurgier, CEO of Revolut’s new Western European hub, in September (reported on in Financials Unshackled here) to the effect that Revolut does “not want to rush” the rollout of mortgage product in the country (“If it is pushed out, it will be pushed out…there is no hurry”) and will not push the product “very aggressively” when it does launch, acknowledging the product’s “complex” nature.

3️⃣Shareholding changes of note:

• AIB Group (AIBG): Principal now 5.01% (previously disclosed shareholding: 4.98%) following a transaction on 4th November.

• Bank of Ireland Group (BIRG): MFS now 8.05% (previously disclosed shareholding: 7.92%) following a transaction on 7th November.

• Permanent TSB (PTSB): FIL now 3.90% (previously disclosed shareholding: 4.17%) following a transaction on 7th November.

🇪🇺 Europe Unbound - My Top Picks 🇪🇺

1️⃣ Regulators defend competitiveness of European banks

• I noted in the Business Post this weekend within this article on the FIBI conference held in Dublin during the week that “Luis de Guindos, Vice-President of the European Central Bank, and Mary-Elizabeth McMunn, Deputy Governor of Financial Regulation at the Central Bank of Ireland…took to the stage, making a case in the context of the simplification initiatives that the European and domestic regulators are pursuing. Yet the overall posture felt defensive, emphasising the high degree of proportionality of the existing regulatory regime and challenging the often-cited criticism that European banks lack competitiveness.”. The week also saw Claudia Buch, Chair of the Supervisory Board of the ECB, defend the banking sector’s rulebook at the ECB Forum on Banking Supervision in Frankfurt on Thursday (speech transcript here): “…weakening supervision or regulation would weaken banks and their competitiveness…Broad-based resilience does not come at the expense of banks’ competitiveness”. Indeed, Frank Elderson, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB and Vice-Chair of the Supervisory Board of the ECB, also spoke in Frankfurt on Friday on how the ECB is indeed seeking to pursue simplification initiatives (speech transcript here) - and cited SREP reforms as a key example that “is at the heart of our simplification initiatives”. But, while SREP decisions gave become shorter and more focused, my understanding is that there has been no meaningful let-up in the absolute quantum of requirements and that most have just been relegated to the Appendix within the letters that the banks receive - indeed, as Sharon Donnery ECB Supervisory Board member, recently said: “These developments do not indicate a change in supervisory focus or a reduction in supervisory attention. Banks will still need to follow up on all measures, irrespective of whether these were communicated in their new SREP decision, in an operational act or through another channel.”. To be clear, I’m not personally disagreeing with all of the various regulators’ points and I do not believe we should just copycat looser regulation that is emerging in other jurisdictions. But everything I see in Europe seems to me to be just ‘over the top’. There is a middleground but regulators seem to me to remain opposed to achieving it. I therefore remain of the strong view that Europe’s banking industry (and the continent more generally) is firmly on track to become even less competitive over the next decade. It’s just too fragmented.

2️⃣ Other Snippets:

• Bloomberg reports this weekend here that Banco Santander Executive Chair Ana Botin has commented that “Friendly deals are the way to go” in a world “where governments defend their countries” and “regulation is what it is”. The comments will undoubtedly be seen by some as a jab at the Sabadell' Board’s failed hostile pursuit of BBVA as well as at Andre Orcel (who was once upon a time, set to be CEO of Santander - I highly recommend this Reuters piece on that saga) for the similar challenges he has faced at the helm of Unicredit. Indeed, Botin also made pointed remarks in the context of European competitiveness - noting that “excess” regulation and taxes are why “Europe is getting further apart from the United States…The biggest single prudential risk is lack of growth”, going on to note that banks could help drive economic growth if they had a “greater capacity to lend”.

• The SRB published its MREL Dashboard for H1 2025 on Monday, which shows that banks continue to meet their MREL targets. Press release here and MREL Dashboard here.

🌎 Global Unpacked - My Top Picks 🌎

1️⃣ Just a few snippets this week:

• Interesting piece on Bloomberg this week here on the vast amounts spent by large US banks on AI - with the columnist Paul Davies noting “The eventual rewards from AI in efficiency and maybe personalization of service may show immense promise, but the time and money required to reach those are also great and mostly paid upfront. And there’s no guarantee of success.”. The pressures to deliver are high. Indeed, Davies picks up on BoA CEO Brian Moynihan’s observation at the bank’s recent Investor Day: “It has to be perfect. If people lose trust in that answer [from Erica], 11,000 people have to be put on the phones and in the branches tomorrow. Tomorrow.”.

• Bloomberg reported on Tuesday on the surge in SRT activity in recent times with the value of banks’ synthetic securitisations now having surpassed $670bn, with growth running at a double-digit clip. The article notes that Santander has now overtaken Barclays (BARC) as the globe’s biggest user of SRTs - with JPM, BNP Paribas, and Bank of Montreal rounding out the top five.

📆 The Calendar 📆

Look out for these in the week ahead:

🇮🇪 Mon 17th Nov (11:30 BST): Central Bank of Ireland (CBI) Financial Stability Review 2025:2

🇬🇧 Thu 20th Nov (07:00 BST): Close Brothers Group (CBG) 1Q26 Trading Update - for the three months to 31st October 2025

🇬🇧 Thu 20th Nov (07:00 BST): Investec (INVP) 1H25 Results - for the six months to 30th September 2025

🇬🇧 Thu 20th Nov (07:00 BST): Nationwide Building Society 1H25 Results - for the six months to 30th September 2025

🇬🇧 Thu 20th Nov (11:00 BST): Close Brothers Group (CBG) AGM

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