Lessons learned from Covid-19 In the first 20 months after the pandemic outbreak, the banking system proved very resilient and able to support the economy. The lending activity in the euro area even increased in 2020, despite a sharp decrease of annual GDP over the same period; at the same time, bank capital position and asset quality remained robust.
Unlike other causes of operational disruption like fires and floods, we know there are agents out there – criminals, terrorist organisations – that have the will, if not necessarily the means, to attack and exploit the system. Motivations vary. More often than not they are economic – to defraud banks or their customers or to extract information.