Changes in financing trends and payments preferences under COVID-19
Fecha: julio 2020
Santiago Carbó Valverde y Francisco Rodríguez Fernández
Financiación de empresas, Crédito, COVID-19, Pagos minoristas
SEFO, Spanish and International Economic & Financial Outlook, V. 9 N.º 4
The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted Spain’s credit markets and payments methods. In regard to the former, it has triggered the need for financial aid programmes, including state guarantees of business loans. Notably, the volume of outstanding business loans in Spain, which had registered year-on-year growth of 1% in January and 0.4% in February, accelerated to 1.1% in March and to 3.1% in April. As for origination, while new loans amounted to 55.12 billion euros in January and February, the aggregate amount for March and April rose to 89.91 billion euros, providing a glimpse of the extra effort made by Spain’s banks to extend financing during the pandemic. Turning to payments, ATM cash withdrawals contracted by 9.3% yearon- year in April, having registered growth of 0.3% in 2019. Meanwhile, point-of-sale card payments, which had sustained growth of 9.4% in 2019, increased by a much lower 2.3% in the first quarter of 2020. That said, this does not foretell the death of cash, with certain segments of the Spanish economy still displaying strong preferences for this form of payment.