Société Générale |The situation seems to be calming down in TSB and there is more visibility. The IT problems and the negative PR will have an impact on the UK franchise, which we hope will be profitable this year. It looks like Sabadell is beginning to stabilise now, we expect a more limited impact from 2019 and reiterate our Neutral stance.
CaixaBank Research | The European Commission is looking at how the banks can have a more diversified portfolio of public debt securities. It is studying how to obtain a safe European asset without having to establish a tax union to back the issue of said asset.
On Friday, S&P raised its rating on the main Spanish banks by one notch. The decision came in the wake of the rating upgrde by the same agency for Spain’s public debt on March 23, so its “a logical move,” according to Renta4.
Morgan Stanley believes Spain and Italy are going to dominate Net Interest Income growth in 2019. They flag that Unicaja, Bankinter and Caixabank are amongst the banks which improve their ROTE more with every 50 bp rise in the Euribor. Furthermore, they have very efficient cost structures.
Bankia Chairman, José Ignacio Goirigolzarri, has fuelled M&A rumours after saying in an interview with the FT that the bank “fits perfectly with other large Spanish banks, specially BBVA.”
The liking for dividends is to a great extent a reflection of the change in the liking for risk, but one can’t defy their quality as a safe cushion. The banking sector is the one with an amazing potential for dividends.
Spanish banks NPLs ratio fell to 8.22% in October, over one percentage point lower than a year earlier. Recently published figures from the Bank of Spain show that the pace of the decline in NPLs accelerated in October, registering an anual 12.52% drop (-11.64% in September).
All the sectors in the Spanish economy should contribute to improving competitiveness and efficiency, at the same time as cutting their debt. The Spanish banks are doing just that.
Spanish banks have returned 1.5 billion euros in cash to more than 350.000 people affected by the floor clause, with whom the lenders reached an agreement after they filed a claim. This is according to figures presented by the banks at September 30, via the Commission which was set up last April to monitor the issue.
Against a backdrop of unstoppable digitalisation, one of the objectives for the banks at the moment is to find a balance between their physical branches and this new digital approximation which clients want.