Spanish economy

No Picture

Reliability of Spanish banks is certified

MADRID | By Ofelia Marín-Lozano | The Spanish banking system got positive grades in the stress tests for two main reasons: the discrepancy between the accounts published by the end of 2013 and its (minimum) revision by the ECB’s inspectors. According to the asset quality revision (AQR), carried out before the stress tests, the capital ratio  of the Spanish banks was only reduced by 20 bases points after the ECB’s revision. This is a minimum adjustment, slightly below the French or German banking system, but well below the Italian, Belgian or Dutch banking. It is certainly well below the big discrepancies detected in Greek and Portuguese banks. 

 



españa recurso1 TC

Spain climbs 20 positions in Doing Business ranking

MADRID | The Corner | The Spanish economy is now placed  number 33 among the World Bank’s 2015 Doing Business ranking, improving on last year´s placement of 52. The results of the report show that Spain now offers greater facilities for entrepreneurs. Spain has improved in four of the ten regulation areas that value the ease of doing business, and has improved from 72.24 points to 73.17,  closer to the 100 total, which measures best global practices regarding business regulation.


No Picture

On the path to normalizing the credit market

MADRID | The Corner | The Spanish Confederation of  Small- and Medium-Sized Companies (CEPYME) points to a “nascent trend” towards a normalization of  credit markets, which will permeate down to the real economy over the course of next year. 

 


No Picture

Spanish banks pass most stringent stress tests to date with no capital shortfalls

MADRID | The Corner | The ECB did not find any capital shortfall in the Spanish banks, which all passed the highly awaited central bank’s stress tests. Results made public on Sunday reveal that 25 European lenders failed while the other 105 succeeded. Among the big fish only the Italian Monte dei Paschi, the world’s oldest, appears in the failure list. Those 25 European entities will have to face €24.6 billion capital shortfall, but considering 13 of them have already issued part ot these capital needs, they will only reach €9 billion.


No Picture

Spain: good labour market performance supports growth

LONDON | By Antonio García Pascual at Barclays | The most recent labour market data have been improving at a faster pace than we had envisaged, including results for the Q3 14 Economically Active Population Survey (EAPS). The EAPS shows that employment increased by 151k in Q3 (private sector +155k; public sector -4k). The number of unemployed fell by 195k, standing at 5.4mn. The unemployment rate stood at 23.7% (24.1% sa), compared to 24.5% in Q2 (24.7% sa). The participation rate continues to fall, to 59.4% (sa), albeit at a moderate pace – this is also consistent with ongoing net migration outflows. 


No Picture

Spanish banks: The sun is back but not for everyone yet

ZURICH | By Ignacio Sanz at UBS | GDP expectations continue to improve, NPLs are starting to come down although we do not expect write-backs for any bank, capital looks comfortable ahead of AQR and banks show a healthy funding while underwriting new deposits at c0.5-0.7%. The market knows all that with banks trading north of 1x NAV15e although for retail banks making more than 10% ROE with 0% rates is challenging.


No Picture

Bank of Spain may adopt Euribor Plus index

MADRID | The Corner | The BdE is working on the possibility of establishing a new reference index known as Euribor Plus. The main characteristic would be the form of calculation, which would only take into account prices (interest rates) for transactions instead of reference prices announced by financial institutions.



No Picture

It’s IPO fiesta time in Spain!

MADRID | The Corner | In 2014, the Spanish stock market could register the largest number of IPOs since 1989 with a total of 17 operations, according to the Spanish Stock Exchange (BME). Up to present, eleven firms have won approval for initial public offerings with capital flows amounting to €4.8 billion.