Is there a growing risk that companies will not be able to repay their loans and that the bank will be left with receivables?
Many bank board members will certainly say yes more often today than at the beginning of the year, because the Russian war has torn down more supply chains, the gas supply is uncertain and the risk of insolvency in the industry has increased.
But in recent decades, credit risk measurement has become less and less a gut thing and more a matter of sophisticated models and ratings.
And these risk gauges, which have to be fed with "hard facts", are hardly effective.
The banks, see Deutsche Bank for example, do not currently have to make any major risk provisions.
2022 will probably still be a good year for them if the period of value appreciation does not hit the office in the first quarter of 2023.
But there are also board members, for example at Helaba and Commerzbank, who follow their gut feeling and are already making forward-looking provisions for credit risks.
But you have to be able and willing to afford it.
This limits comparability among banks.