HE European Central Bank (ECB) is not happy with the situation low interest rate paid by euro zone banks deposit Because their customers receive low wages, organizations Spanish They also line up Deputy head of the Monetary authority, of their counterparts in the monetary union Luis de Guindos, He returned this Tuesday to urge banks to take action. increase the fee at the disposal of individuals. “When we raise interest rates, we raise them on assets (loans) and liabilities (deposits), rates need to increase At the Deloitte and ‘ABC’ conference and in the presence of a large audience of bank executives, he argued that “there is interest in the entire product range.”
This is not a new message from the former PP Minister of Economy. Inside September 2022Just a month and a half after the ECB raised official interest rates for the first time in 11 years, Guindos stated in Valladolid that the increase in deposit rates was already valid. “It needs to come, and relatively quickly.”. Christine Lagarde, both the European body’s vice-president and president, has insisted on this message in Spain in recent months. This is part of your strategy tightening monetary policy To fight inflation. “We are looking for tightening of credit to reduce demand, but there is another channel making savings more attractive against investment,” Guindos insisted on Tuesday.
Spanish banks are one of them they pay less attention To this desire of the ECB. The country’s assets are: sixth of 20 Members of the euro zone who pay the least on deposits. They froze the interest on new deposits at around 2.3% for three summer months. eurozone increased from 2.7% in June and at 3.08%. The difference between what European banks pay on average and what Spanish institutions pay is 0.16 percentage points in December 2021 (when the ECB begins to tighten monetary policy), 0.264 percentage points in July 2022 (when the ECB increases official interest rates for the first time) and 0.75 points last September. As a result, the average rate deposit balance Proportion of households (not just new operations) in Spain at 1.5%In the Eurozone 2.07%.
Unsustainable in the medium term
Traditionally, the difference between the amounts paid for new deposits in Spain and the monetary union It wasn’t that bulky.. Since statistics began in 2003, the difference has normally been as follows: a few decimals even hundreds. In fact, there were periods when there were banks. Spaniards paid more More than Europeans between 2004 and 2006 (to finance the real estate bubble) or between 2007 and 2011 and in 2012 (due to the major banking crisis). However, the gap has increased rapidly in recent months as Spanish companies benefit from their privileges. plenty of liquidity And low demand for credit slightly increasing deposit returns (which would enable them to need less external financing) so that their results benefit more from the increase in the cost of credit.
In any case, Guindos stated that the increase in the rate of savings products “it’s always slower” more than credit and shown “persuaded” deposit type will continue to rise. Yes, he did this to give banks a warning: benefits What are they buying this year? not sustainable As evidenced by the continued existence of investors in the medium term stock price below theoretical book value. He listed the reasons for this; financing cost Will continue to increase (partly due to deposits), economic slowdown late payment (this already has “intermediate signs”) and credit is not growing or fallingdepending on the segment.
Break a profit record
Currently not noticeable: six Ibex 35 assets (Santander, BBVA, CaixaBank, Sabadell, Bankinter and Unicaja Banco) together earned 19 billion 761 million euros, an increase of 23.4% between January and September. Among other factors, it explains: monthly interest bill The number of houses increased rapidly 1.158 million euros Since December 2021, it has increased from 1.343 million last September to 2.501 million. Just the opposite, interest collected Expenditures by families due to deposits and current accounts increased slightly 212 millionFrom 14 million to 226 million. This means that organizations’ monthly margin increased by 946 million and 71% to 2,275 million.
An important element to explain this is 89.4% of the money spent by households What is recorded in assets is now in existing accountsof average interest only 0.131%. However, in previous interest rate hike cycles, savings were distributed equally between these accounts and deposits; this accounted for 50% to 60% of what families held in banks. In other words, even by increasing term deposit interest rates, institutions they pay much less interest to houses based on similar events in the past. While the deposit balance increased by 5 billion 889 million in August, the account balance decreased by 5 billion 212 million, but the difference is still very large (103 billion 797 million and 882 billion 113 million, respectively).