Measuring the resilience of the Spanish banking sector: The impact of the crisis
Fecha: marzo 2012
Joaquin Maudos
Etiquetas: Sistema bancario, Resilencia, Crisis financiera
Spanish and International Economic & Financial Otlook, SEFO, V. 1 N.º 0
The crisis has had a severe impact on the international and Spanish financial sector. Although the Spanish financial sector has been initially more resilient to the crisis than its European counterparts, additional challenges are growing. One of the variables most adversely affected by the crisis has been bank profitability. Reduced profitability has mostly been a consequence of the large amount of provisions that had to be dedicated to cleaning up balance sheets as a result of impaired assets related to the real estate sector, but also because of an increase in financial costs, a consequence of more restrictive capital markets conditions. Looking forward, we should expect further pressure on profitability ratios due to the expected economic contraction in 2012, the continuing process of private deleveraging and the likely adherence of the ECB to loose monetary policies. A further cceleration of the financial restructuring process and integration is needed for Spanish banks to reap the full benefits of economies of scale. Also, banks must continue implementing cost containment strategies to improve efficiency and make further advances to reduce spare capacity.