Frankfurt, July 28: The European Central Bank (ECB) on Tuesday urged banks not to pay dividends or offer bonuses until January 1, 2021, in order to ensure lenders have sufficient buffers to survive the economic storm amid the coronavirus pandemic.

According to a Reuters report, the ECB said banks could withstand a second wave of infections, but it called on authorities to be ready to intervene and prevent a credit crunch, possibly including recapitalisation. ECB will further review the decisions in the fourth quarter of the year. On Monday, European Central Bank Vice President Luis de Guindos said most of the European Union’s banks are strong enough to survive the impact of the coronavirus crisis. Global COVID-19 Cases Top 16.4 Million, Death Toll Rises to 652,459, Says Johns Hopkins.

ECB tells banks not to pay dividends until Jan 2021 over virus crisis: 

Investing.com report mentioned that ECB had already signalled in March that it wanted banks to avoid foreclosing on bad debts in a hurry. It feared that panicked attempts to enclose the financial system would make the coronavirus downturn worse and, in doing so, would further increase the risk of a new financial crisis.

The world has a total of 16,659,395 cases and USA leads the chart with the maximum COVID-19 cases totalling around 4,433,410. The total cases in Brazil are 2,446,397. India ranks third among the worst-hit nations in the coronavirus pandemic and the cases have neared the 1.5 million mark.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 28, 2020 03:40 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).