European banks' dividend payouts at risk, Exane says

(ShareCast News) - European Banks face a daunting regulatory environment that will leave the sector with an average capital shortfall of 60 basis points at the end of 2018, broker Exane BNP Paribas estimated, meaning their dividend payouts were still at risk.Nonetheless, that was expected to be the situation after approximately 230 basis points of cumulative cash dividends being paid out over that time horizon. Hence, "there is capacity to absorb this impact through lower distributions," the analysts said in a research note sent to clients.Also on the negative side of the ledger, the full range for the impact - estimated at 190 basis points - on banks was between 150 and 290 basis points.As well, a surplus in one bank wouldn't help another in deficit, so individual banks might be impacted by significantly more."In aggregate we estimate a capital shortfall at end-2018 of €77bn for the banks that are short (60% of our coverage universe), and they have €167bn capacity to address this through lower cash dividends over 15-18E," Exane explained.Barclays, Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank, Santander and Danske Bank were the lenders that stood to bear the largest impact, as the capital shortfall versus target represented more than 50% of the broker's estimated cash dividend expectations out to 2018.