MADRID | By Julia Pastor | Spanish entities credit portfolio amounted €746 bn at the beginning of the year, a 5.99% fall against same month last year, while holding deposits at €687 bn, which meant a yearly growth of 0.53%. March figures suggested a new reduction of credit lending to SMEs and families. As long as banks do not have their balances adjusted by 2015 after the ECB’s stress tests, credit and deposits will not tip towards loans.
MADRID | By Luis Arroyo | Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Does the credit decrease because the demand is weak or because banks don’t offer any? Requirements imposed by banks to lend money (excluding to the public administrations) are aggressive both in real and collateral interest rates. Meanwhile, the possibility that the ECB increased rates would further collapse bank credit.
MADRID | By Fernando G. Urbaneja | Spanish households and businesses were the most indebted at the beginning of the crisis (80% of the total), but now their debt is getting smaller in a systematic and decided way. The same cannot be said of the State, which keeps increasing its public debt with equal zeal (or even more) and has gone from less than 20% at the beginning of the crisis to 36% this week (and still growing).
MADRID | By Luis Arroyo | Journalist Paul Krugman recently published an illuminating article by Samuelson about the (in)efficiency of the monetary expansion by its own when the liquidity trap has been reached. It is a very clear explanation about the problem of the money: central banks don’t create money if banks don’t want to give credit.
MADRID | By Luis Alcaide | Globally, investment in relation to sales figures are at their lowest level in the last 22 years, even though there is a huge amount of liquidity all over the world. What is the problem then? Crystal clear: money is not flowing and therefore growth cannot be reactivated.
MADRID | By Luis Arroyo and Tania Suárez | Credit is still stagnant in Spain and neither companies nor families are able to access money. According to the Bank of Spain, the development of credit in the country is still falling. The conclusion is that there is an insufficient banking money supply with a still very high fall rate.
MADRID | By JP Marin Arrese | These days, the EU institutions remain on standby mode till Angela Merkel steps in. The ECB is no exception. It is switched on but not actually working. Europe is waiting for the new German government to set the new agenda’s content and rhythm. Only then, substantive decisions could be taken.
MADRID | By José S. Mendoza at Capitalmadrid | Spain retailers sales rate fell by 2% last July compared to year ago. It’s already been 37 months – plus 3 years – of consecutive annual declines for them, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics. The Federation of autonomous workers ATA warns that the retail sector is experiencing a really difficult situation, with a constant and continuous fall of sales and job losses.
MADRID | By Julia Pastor | Small and medium size companies are the most vulnerable side of the European economy, but also the most powerful weapon to get out of the crisis. Germany will develop a €10 billion credit plan to move peripheral countries SMEs for their own export engine works.
Asked about what would make them more likely to make capital investments in the next 12 months, 70 percent of U.S. small-business owners point out to three circumstances: a better sales outlook, more certainty about their operating environment, and lower federal taxes. According to the Wells Fargo-Gallup Small Business Index released by Gallup, that has surveyed small-business owners on current and future perceptions of their business financial situations, some of…