LONDON, March 12 (Reuters) – The cost of insuring exposure to debt issued by European banks and financial across Europe rose sharply on Thursday on concerns over tumbling interest rates and the economic fallout from the spread of the coronavirus.

Indexes for insuring European financial debt jumped to hit their highest levels since early 2016 with the index for senior financial debt climbing to a high of 137 basis points (bps) while the index for subordinated financial debt rose to 293 bps, data from IHS Markit showed.

Five-year credit default swaps (CDS) of individual banks also soared with Germany’s Deutsche Bank climbing 11 bps to 111 bps – their highest in 10 months.

Italian lenders UniCredit and Intesa Sanpaolo both added around 20 bps to 201 bps, the highest since late-2018. French bank Societe Generale spiked 11 bps to trade at 76 bps. (Reporting by Karin Strohecker, edited by Julien Ponthus)

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