WEEK AHEAD: WEEK 32

FINANCIAL results for the first half of the year from Permanent TSB (tomorrow), Bank of Ireland (Wednesday), and AIB and KBC (Thursday), will dominate domestic economic news this week. Along with Ulster Bank’s results from last Friday, the week will give investors, policymakers and bank customers an update on the impact of Covid-19 on the banking sector.

The scale of customer payment breaks offered by all of the banks over the past five months means the results this week will not provide much insight into the level of financial distress among banks’ consumer or retail customers, beyond the bald numbers on payment breaks.

That is set to become clearer when the payment breaks end in September.

Elsewhere, Germany’s Bundesbank is due to learn this week whether evidence it has provided to the country’s constitutional court will convince judges that its role in supporting the European Central Bank’s quantitative easing meets a test of proportionality, following a controversial initial ruling from the court in May that it did not.