Santander’s bid for Webster demonstrates its confidence in the US banking sector and its long-term business prospects, despite the current scenario of high political risk, deterioration in public finances and weakening of governance standards.

The targets of the strategic plan and the bank’s 2025 performance both align with expectations already embedded in our ‘A’/Stable/’‘S1’ ratings.

Every month saw collections underperform in 2025. Not even the more than doubling of proceeds in December could salvage the poor performance, as collections were still 32% lower than the average for that month relative to the previous three years.

Thursday 29 January 2026 - 15:00 (CET)

Resilient profitability, solid asset quality and capital buffers make for a balanced base case for European banks. Alongside stable expected collateral performance, most covered bond programmes can withstand issuer downgrades of up to three notches.

Scope Ratings has published the performance overview of notes issued by Marzio Finance, a EUR 10bn securitisation programme backed by ‘cessione del quinto’ and ‘delegazione di pagamento’ (CQS) loans originated by IBL Banca.

Geopolitical tensions, continued political uncertainty in France, and poor operating efficiency may cloud the outlook for French banks in 2026 in an otherwise supportive operating environment where stable interest rates favour improved profit margins.

Collections in November 2025 were around 40% below the three-year average for the month, and 3% lower than October. In absolute EUR terms, volumes received between September and November were stable in a narrow range.

The EU NPL ratio continues to be low and stable, but corporate NPLs are elevated in some core countries. At a time of rising geopolitical risk, trade tensions and an uncertain economic outlook, we expect a modest deterioration in asset quality.

European CMBS issuance accelerated in 2025 to EUR 8.7bn, almost 75% higher than the previous three years combined. We expect the momentum to continue, driven by the growing role of private credit in CRE financing and sustained demand for securitisation.