Based on the most recent data, JPMorgan notes that the share of large or uninsured deposits is likely to be close to half of total deposits in the European Union. With deposits already flowing out of some of the peripheral EU nations...
(as we warned here [6])
[7]
we thought it appropriate to point out just which nations have the largest share of uninsured deposits (and are not yet under the ECB's 'standard of living' capital controls). It seems - among many others - that despite France throwing in the towel on the 75% income tax, there is another good reason for the wealthy to leave...
[8]
The only reason why Europe has been slow to impair its loans (as shown by the artificial rise in Italian and Spanish bad debt) over the past 4 years, is that a full representation of reality on the asset side (such as that which finally caught up with Cyprus) would lead to a dramatic collapse in balance sheet assets, requiring a comparable crunch on the liability side, where unsecured liabilities such as deposits would certainly take a big hit as well (especially if an equity cram up such as that of Citi is required to preserve the equity tranche).
[9]
Which is why the only thing preventing a "Cyprus-type event" from spreading to other nations is the gradual, determined bad debt impairment.
Of course, should there be a risk flaring event and banks are forced to remark bad debt to reality, what just happened in Cyprus will be a gentle breeze compared to what would come.