Tysklands forbundskansler Angela Merkel har lenge insistert på at euroen skal reddes, men blant flere større banker tar man sine forholdsregler med tanke på at fellesvalutaen ikke vil overleve, i alle fall ikke i sin nåværende form. De dårlige nyhetene har stått i kø, blant annet vanskelighetene selv tyskerne nå har med å selge statsobligasjoner, samt mulig deklassering av Belgia og Frankrike.

Banks including Merrill Lynch, Barclays Capital and Nomura issued a cascade of reports this week examining the likelihood of a breakup of the euro zone. “The euro zone financial crisis has entered a far more dangerous phase,” analysts at Nomura wrote on Friday. Unless the European Central Bank steps in to help where politicians have failed, “a euro breakup now appears probable rather than possible,” the bank said.

Major British financial institutions, like the Royal Bank of Scotland, are drawing up contingency plans in case the unthinkable veers toward reality, bank supervisors said Thursday. United States regulators have been pushing American banks like Citigroup and others to reduce their exposure to the euro zone. In Asia, authorities in Hong Kong have stepped up their monitoring of the international exposure of foreign and local banks in light of the European crisis.

Et pussig fenomen er at virkelighetsoppfatningen hos bankene i eurosonen synes å være helt forskjellig fra anglosfærens:

But banks in big euro zone countries that have only recently been infected by the crisis do not seem to be nearly as flustered.

Banks in France and Italy in particular are not creating backup plans, bankers say, for the simple reason that they have concluded it is impossible for the euro to break up. Although banks like BNP Paribas, Société Générale, UniCredit and others recently dumped tens of billions of euros worth of European sovereign debt, the thinking is that there is little reason to do more.

I europeisk nærlingsliv synes ikke tanken like fjern som hos bankene:

Certain businesses are taking similar precautions. The giant German tourism operator TUI recently caused a stir in Greece when it sent letters to Greek hoteliers demanding that contracts be renegotiated in drachmas to protect against losses if Greece were to exit the euro.

New York Times: Banks Build Contingency for Breakup of the Euro