Regulatory lenience over Covid-19 must be carefully judged

Former ECB supervisory board member says unwinding regulatory relief later will take courage

Ignazio Angeloni: the banking sector "needs to be defended from the severity of the shock"

It is tempting, as many observers do nowadays, to compare this crisis with the great financial crisis of 2008–2009. There are indeed some similarities.

In both cases, the economy fell into a steep recession; the slump could in fact be much deeper now, early evidence suggests. In both cases, the immediate macroeconomic policy response was aggressively expansionary. Central banks and fiscal authorities have learned from past experience and are reacting now more quickly and forcefully than ever.