Level 3 assets at global systemic banks down 36% since 2014

Hard-to-value holdings down sharply over the past six years, but pandemic threw spanner in the works at some banks

The world’s too-big-to-fail banks cut hard-to-value assets by 35.9% between 2014 and 2020, equivalent to a €186.7 billion ($219.7 billion) reduction, Risk Quantum analysis shows.

The current 30-strong crop of global systemically important banks (G-Sibs) held an aggregate €327.7 billion of Level 3 assets – illiquid, hard-to-value instruments – at the time of their latest assessment, compared with €511.3 billion six years prior, when the earliest comparable systemic risk disclosures were