Four out of five European bankers see another recession coming

The latest European Credit Risk Outlook, published by FICO and Efma today, provides a grim forecast for Europe. More than 100 credit risk management professionals across Europe answered the survey in January and February, and here’s some of what they said:

• 79 percent of respondents forecast a new European recession for 2012.
• 100 percent of Spanish and Portuguese respondents said their countries were going to experience another recession this year. That might be expected, but more than half (53 percent) of respondents from the UK and Ireland also forecast a recession in their countries. Go to Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and that number drops to just 25 percent.
• 60 percent of respondents said the housing market would not improve in 2012 — compared to just 2 percent who said it would. Again, it depends on where you sit. 56 percent of risk managers in the DACH region said the housing market would get stronger in 2012. Just 18 percent of respondents from the UK and Ireland agreed, and no one in Spain and Portugal forecast an improvement.

The report, which is available on the FICO website, also has interesting forecasts of credit supply and demand, and credit delinquencies. I’ll comment on those later. For now, I think I’ll go stimulate the economy by buying a drink!