These include technologybased failures, cyber incidents, pandemics, and natural disasters. Such events, combined with banks' growing reliance on third-party service providers, expose them to a range of operational risks, which are often difficult to anticipate.
The German banking industry has already spent considerable efforts on cleaning its balance sheets – some as part of the Commission’s state aid decisions, some in reaction to EBA stress tests, some for other reason. Thus, banks are in a better condition now than they were a few years ago. I am not afraid of huge surprises.