Persistently expansionary monetary policy: Are central banks considering the impact on financial intermediaries?
Central banks (we look at the cases of the United States and the euro zone) are currently making announcements that mean they will conduct expansionary monetary policies for a long time. This means that the outlook is for long-term interest rates to remain very low in the long term. The resulting problems for financial intermediaries, which central banks are probably underestimating, are explained by: The squeeze on interest rate spreads for banks; The fall in the yield on bond portfolios, and the increase in the actuarial value of liabilities for insurers and pension funds. This weakening of financial intermediaries is all the more dangerous as financial intermediaries would need strong profitability to increase their capital (banks due to the increase in borrower defaults, insurers due to the need to diversify portfolios into riskier assets).