Bank Woes Deepening in Europe

...Few people outside Belgium have ever heard of KBC Bank. But the travails of this lender, based in Brussels, highlight the broader challenges Europe is facing by not having more fully confronted the deteriorating health of its financial institutions.

Since October, KBC Bank has had to seek government relief three times. In all, it has received $41.5 billion in financing and guarantees to recover from disastrous mortgage bets that its financial engineers and traders made when times were good. For a bank with a balance sheet of just $425 billion, it is an astounding sum, exceeding the bailout of the Royal Bank of Scotland.

KBC is not alone. Souring loans and festering portfolios of securitized mortgages still plague a number of national banks...

NYT: Bank Woes Deepening in Europe