Far be it for us to comment that anything like "fundamentals" matters anymore, or that, blasphemy, bad news is anything but good news, however what the Central Bank of Cyprus revealed today is a little troubling to say the least: as of the most recent, June, data, the total percentage of non-performing loans in the Cypriot banking system just rose to a mind-blowing 45%, up from 44.3% in May, and nearly double the 23.6% which was reported at March 2013 when the local banking system cratered, leading to the first European forced "bail-in" of (mostly Russian) depositors.
In other words, nearly one of every two loans in Cyprus is now in default or near-default.
One wonders if, when peeling all the rhetoric and obfuscation, Europe's very own NPLs, which several years ago were estimated to be in the trillions of euros, is higher, lower, or just about the same as Cyprus.
[4]
Source: Central Bank of Cyprus [5] [5]
