Spanish banks “deserve a medal for the speed with which they have reached their customers with financial support when they needed it most,” stated our president, José María Roldán, referring to the state-guaranteed financing program and the moratoriums applied to help families and businesses during the health crisis.
During his speech at the XXVII Financial Sector Meeting organized by Deloitte, ABC, and Sociedad de Tasación, Roldán specified that AEB member entities have accepted 94% of mortgage moratorium requests and have granted more than 800,000 voluntary moratoriums.
“That is practically all of the applications,” emphasized Roldán, who reaffirmed the sector’s commitment to maintaining its support for the Spanish business community to mitigate the economic effects of the health crisis and pave the way for recovery. In his view, “it is necessary to maintain support for solvent companies, even if this means mistakenly maintaining some non-viable or zombie companies.”
Spanish banks, he maintained, respond quickly to crises: “When there is pressure on profitability, action begins: three mergers, a spin-off, digitalization plans. You never get bored here. We should feel proud of Spanish banking.”
Regarding the European Next Generation aid program, he said that “we must make the most of European funds to transform the Spanish economy, and banking has a major role to play there due to its efficiency and capacity to reach SMEs, where wealth creation resides.”
On the other hand, the president of the AEB considered that this crisis could lead to a significant revision of banking regulations, “a Basel V,” which would regulate the financial activity of technological operators according to the concept of ‘same activity, same regulation and supervision’.
You can watch the video of his speech here
