Financial Sector & Digitalization
The Financial and Digitization Area monitors the situation of the financial system, with special attention to the banking sector and groups of savings banks, and its digital transformation.
In this area, research of international diffusion in the financial system is carried out, developed by the researchers that form it and also through collaborations of the same with other world-renowned researchers. Among the topics that are most developed are financial and banking regulation and its effects, the competitive structure of the banking sector, the means of payment for business financing and the role of finance in economic growth.
The digital transformation of the Spanish financial system is analyzed through the Observatorio de la Digitalización Financiera (ODF). The objective of this Observatory is to generate, accumulate and disseminate information on the progress of the digital transformation in the Spanish financial system.
Highlighted
Artículo
Managing the risks of quantitative tightening in the euro area
Fecha:
February 2023
Recent quantitative tightening decisions undertaken by the ECB are important to reduce surplus liquidity and improve the functioning of the monetary transmission mechanism in the euro area. Nevertheless, they pose important risks for commercial banks, central banks, government finances, and the ECB itself.
Artículo
Monetary policy 2023 and interest rate increases: Outlook and impact
Fecha:
February 2023
The monetary policy roadmap for 2023 will continue to prioritize the fight against inflation, with successive official rate increases at least for much of the year, although accompanied by a slower increase in EURIBOR. Within this context, the banks will continue to play a key role in credit provision to the economy, yet while they could face improved income prospects, notable challenges exist within the prevailing uncertain climate.
Artículo
Corporate finance: Banks versus capital markets
Fecha:
February 2023
Tension in the corporate bond market since the start of the inflationary spiral towards the
end of last year has driven a sharp increase in secondary market rates, as well as a sharp contraction in primary market issuance, forcing many corporates back to the bank financing channel they had previously abandoned. Nonetheless, rather than seeing this development
as a setback, it reflects the complimentary rather than substitutive nature of bank and
market corporate financing, with the banks acting as a back-up option when the bond markets are temporarily unable to finance the productive apparatus.
Artículo
Importance and characteristics of the bancassurance business in Spain
Fecha:
February 2023
The weight of bancassurance in Spain´s insurance business and its contribution to parent banks’ domestic earnings are very significant. As a result, as evidenced by the recent COVID-19 crisis, as well as in normal times, the relatively substantial contribution of the
bancassurance business lends earnings stability and solidity to the banks with the most developed such businesses.