The U.S. government implemented payments through TARP program after the bankrupt of Lehman Brothers shocked the financial markets last fall. 125 billion U.S. dollars were allocated in order to help major banks, which had to be sufficient during the current economic crisis.

Despite the fact that the banks’ return of their previous emergency government financial help demonstrates their strength, it is too early to talk about full recovery of American, as well as European banks: stock rating agency Standard & Poor’s (S & P) downgraded the rating of 18 U.S. banks.

«Prospects for the industry are very dark», – commented S & P analyst Rodrigo Kvintanilla on the event. This action affected, in particular, the fourth-largest U.S. bank Wells Fargo, which credit ability was evaluated to level AA- by S & P.

S & P is painting a gray picture also for the banks in Europe. «We expect the volume of reserves to grow significantly in order to cover potential risks in the loan business», – said analyst Scott Boogie,” which predicts that the delays in repayments in many European countries will double this year compared with the ones of the last year. According to the calculations of S & P, the 50 largest banks in Europe consolidated 128 billion euro as a reserve to cover potential risks in the loan business last year.

Experts of S & P believe that the banking sector in Europe and the U.S. will face some serious changes. «Industry is on the verge of aggressive changes, and in all likelihood, we will witness some dramatic shifts», – emphasized Mr. Kvintanilla.

Of course, large-scale crisis plans of the authorities had their effect, and investors are gradually beginning to return their confidence. But some experts warn that the crisis is not yet finished, and soon many banks will have to write off their assets. This is particularly true of European banks, underscore the market participants.

According to estimates of some analysts, European banks will have to cancel orders of about $ 280 billion of bad assets over the next year and a half, and a lot will depend on their ability to attract new capital. “Banks should be able to earn money and solve their problems. Investors’ attitudes to them depend largely on these skills, – said bank analyst of Hugh baths Shtinis Morgan Stanley. – Of course, investors are asking how many banks will need time to recover from the crisis”. In early March shares of European banks fell to their lowest level over the past 17 years. Then they were able to somewhat balance their decline and the growth of bank securities in Europe grew by about 20% during the period of this year. However, we should not forget that in the event of a panic among investors the quotes of companies of the banking sector may once again collapse; even though the threat of collapse of the European banking system is left behind. Meanwhile, rating agency S & P warned earlier this week that the financial environment still leaves much to be desired, and that not all European financial groups will survive the current crisis. “Earlier this week, another rating agency Moody’s downgraded the ratings of 25 European banks. Among the “low” rated banks were Spanish bank BBVA, German Deutsche Bank, French BNP Paribas and a huge number of smaller banks. In turn, UBS analyst John-Paul Kratchli notes that the European banking sector still “lacks capital.”

The most interesting thing is that U.S. banks have managed to attract new capital much better than the European ones have done. For example, during the period of this year European banks have attracted about 42 billion dollars of new capital. Last year the figure was 126 billion dollars. For comparison: the U.S. banks attracted 68 billion U.S. dollars only during this quarter. And there is every reason to assume that the European banks will have to try to find the money as soon as possible.