© Reuters. The euro remains above 1.06 euros between a new ECB meeting
Berlin, March 17 (.).- The euro stabilized today above 1.06 dollars, despite persisting uncertainty and fears of a banking crisis and while the European Central Bank (ECB) held an extraordinary meeting.
Around 4:00 p.m. GMT, the euro was exchanged at 1.0645 euros, compared to 1.0624 dollars in the last hours of the European currency market trading of the previous day.
The ECB set the reference exchange rate for the euro at $1.0623.
The euro moved in a fluctuation band between 1.0607 and 1.0672 dollars.
One day after raising its interest rates by half a percentage point, to 3.50%, the ECB held an extraordinary meeting of its supervisory board this Friday to analyze the turbulence in the banking sector.
“The council meets to exchange views and to inform members about recent developments in the banking sector,” a spokesman was quoted as saying by German media.
The ECB considers the situation to be solid, according to these sources. The German government also sent a message of serenity, since according to a spokesman for Chancellor Olaf Scholz “there are no signs of a new crisis in Germany and Europe.”
Already at the beginning of the week there had been an extraordinary meeting of the ECB due to the turbulence that arouses memories of the year 2008, when the problems started in the United States led to a global financial crisis.
The collapse of “Silicon Valley Bank” and “Signature Bank” have been followed by the problems of the Swiss bank Swiss credit (SIX:) which has received a capital injection from the Swiss Central Bank of 50 billion francs.
Despite the message of serenity from the political sphere and from the ECB, the fear of contagion persists and, with it, the risk of generating a crisis of confidence that will lead to withdrawals of deposits that will drag down other banks.
gc-
