US Technology Company Apple is worth as much as all Euro Zone banks

US technology company Apple is now worth around the 32 biggest euro zone banks.

That's the stark result from a steep fall within the share price of banks including Spain's Santander, France's BNP Paribas, Germany's Deutsche Financial institution and Italy's Unicredit, compared to a steady rise in Apple's valuation, based on Thomson Reuters data.

Earlier on Friday the DJ STOXX euro zone banking institutions index fell 4%, valuing its 32 members at $340 billion. That's in line with the market capitalisation of their free-float shares, which for some French banks particularly is less than 100%.



The index has crashed by a third since the beginning of July, hammered by fears banks will lose billions from their holdings of euro zone government bonds along with a failure of policymakers to stop a euro zone debt crisis from distributing.

The euro zone banks have lost three-quarters of their value since peaking within May 2007.

In contrast, Apple's market capitalisation has soared to $340 billion about the back of the success of innovative technology products like iPods, iPhones as well as iPads.