Bloomberg reports, citing people familiar with the matter
French lenders - led by BNP - are reported to be lobbying to resume dividend payments in order to bolster share prices that have slumped heavily amid the coronavirus crisis.
The sources say that they are trying to convince the ECB to permit payouts in Q4, and that some ECB supervisory board members are sympathetic so much so to allow banks to possibly make small payments this year on a case-to-case basis.
For some context, the ECB had suspended dividend payments by European banks in a trade-off to allow them to tap into capital buffers back in March when having to deal with a possible credit crunch amid the fallout from the virus outbreak at the time.
However, now the banks are arguing that they have sufficient capital to cover credit to companies impacted by the virus thus leading to the push above.
