Interviews


Fintech in Spain

“In A few years, An African Will Be Able To Invest 5 Euros In A US Hedge Fund”

Fernando Rodríguez | There are over 200 FinTech companies in Spain. Some are going full speed ahead with a variety of banking and investment activities: price comparisons, collective funding, loans and payments, ‘robo advisor’, property…”It’s all about offering more possibilities and more access to a more transparent market,” says Jesús Pérez president of the Spanish Association of FinTech and InsurTech.


Low salaries

“Betting On Low Salaries Is An Endless process”

“We are in a situation where retired people’s pensions are bigger than the salaries paid to the people working in the jobs they left. Something has broken down. All the education and infrastructures we have created should be directed towards a society with decent salaries,” says Alejandro Legarda Zaragüeta, who knows the ins and outs of Spanish industry after 20 years as managing director of CAF.





helena Dos Santons on stock markets

“Multiple products help to deepen stock markets”

“The stock market’s relevance and its trading volumes increase to the extent there is a good derivatives market, given that this helps neutralise part of the risk of exposure to the stocks. In this sense, multiple products help to deepen the market.”


Hermann Simon, chairman of Simon-Kucher

“Spanish industry does very little to promote a dual training system adaptable to the needs of today”

“…One of the reasons for the high level of youth unemployment in Spain has to do with the fact that companies hardly get involved in the dual training system,” explains Hermann Simon the chairman of Simon-Kucher, the preferred consultancy firm of the “hidden champions,” those German mid-cap companies which compete globally. “Spain’s level of innovation is very weak…the whole country cannot live just off tourism services.”


Spain institutional investors

“In Spain, institutional investors have always been too conservative”

Fernando Rodríguez | Ignacio Gómez-Montejo is the director of ICR Institutional Investment, manager of Equity Arbitrage, the only fund of funds Hedge Fund which is continuing to sell products in this category in Spain. He knows very well Spanish investors behaviour given his 25 years long experience in the financial sphere.


Carmen Barreda

“Coal Still Accounts For 20% Of Our Electricity Generation: Even More In 2016”

“We are still generating 20% of our electricity with coal and this increased in 2016 compared with the previous year…It’s cheaper than gas. And that’s the point: no matter how much we try to establish targets, companies operate on a day-to-day basis, look for economic efficiency and use the cheapest form of energy available,” says Carmen Gómez de Barreda, board member at Red Eléctrica.