...Austrian Banks' Recovery Lags Behind Germany's as Austria Toughens Support Stance By resolving Heta, the Austrian authorities are tightening their bank-support stance initiated in 2014 when they imposed a bail-in on Heta's sub debt and ruled out further support to OeVAG. This is increasingly exposing unsecured creditors to the Austrian banks' protracted recovery. Despite major progress, the Austrian banks lag behind their German counterparts in reducing their reliance on crisis-driven state aid. This is partly due to Heta, whose creation in 4Q14 occurred four years after crisis-driven state intervention peaked in Germany with the creation of FMS WM, although both cases trace back to pre-crisis times. Heta and, in general, the sovereign's large bank exposures contributed to Austria's recent downgrade to `AA+'/Stable, while bank exposures are increasingly uncritical for the German sovereign (AAA/Stable). German banks' exposures ...
