Spanish banks’ debt with the European Central Bank, which reflects their gross demand of the institution’s regular financing operations, did not show any change in February. It remained unchanged at 261.21 billion euros, exactly the same as a month earlier.
However, according to Bank of Spain data reported by Europa Press, the increase is 100.24% compared to the same month of the previous year.
The demand for financing from the ECB by Spanish entities began an upward trend in March 2020, coinciding with the outbreak of the crisis derived from the spread of coronavirus.
This behaviour lasted for five consecutive months, until August (-0.01%), a month of low activity in the markets, returning to the upward trend, but very moderately, from September onwards. These small increases slowed down at the beginning of 2021 and have now amounted to two months with hardly any change.
The gross financing demand from the ECB by the Eurosystem as a whole reached 1.792 trillion euros in February, 0.002% less than in the previous month and up by 190.48% year-on-year.
So the financing demand from Spain-based banks represented 14.57% of the Eurosystem’s total in February, compared to 12.05% in January.
