(MENAFN- AFP) The European Central Bank should end its easy-money policy to avoid inflating market bubbles and relieve struggling eurozone lenders, Deutsche Bank chief John Cryan said Wednesday.
"The time of cheap money in Europe must come to an end, despite the strong euro," Cryan told a Frankfurt bankers' gathering the day before a closely-watched ECB monetary policy meeting.
ECB policymakers have set interest rates at historic lows and pumped over 2.0 trillion euros ($2.4 trillion) into the economy by buying government and corporate bonds, which Cryan said had helped banks recover from the financial crisis but "also brought fresh turbulence".
"We are now seeing signs of bubbles in more and more parts of the capital market where we wouldn't have expected them," he added.
What's more, "interest rate policy has been partly responsible for the decline in earnings at European banks" to just 23 percent of their pre-crisis levels, Cryan said.
The problem is worsening as more and more loans issued at higher interest rates in the past are paid off.
Competing American banks benefit from higher interest rates in the United States, increasing their net interest income bz 8.0 percent in the first half of 2017 compared with a 2.0-percent decline in Europe, Cryan said.
However, policymakers are leery of scaling back supportive measures just yet, as inflation remains short of the ECB's target and the economy confronts a braking effect from the euro's appreciation to almost $1.20.
Cryan sought to flip that perception around, arguing that the exchange rate surge shows investors are pricing in higher future interest rates.
"When the market is anticipating it, why not give the market a little bit" he asked.
Cryan's comments echo those of Commerzbank chief Martin Zielke Tuesday, who argued that the "time has come" for a monetary policy shift.
The ECB's crisis-fighting medicine has been "effective", Zielke told business daily Handelsblatt, "but as with every medicine there are side effects, and they are growing."
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