Just over four years ago, José Luis Rodríguez offered me the opportunity to use this platform to set out my intentions as President of the AEB, a position to which I had been elected a few months earlier. Two issues were at the heart of my remarks at the time: the sector’s image and the problem of profitability. Today, now in my second term, I have no choice but to return to those same issues, even at the risk of being repetitive, because they remain the two main pillars around which the sector’s concerns revolve.
In other words, what fundamentally concerns the banking industry is, on the one hand, how to fulfil its role as a financier and driver of the economy efficiently and sustainably over time—and to do so it needs to achieve an adequate level of profits, that is, to be profitable—and, on the other, how to convey to citizens—customers, authorities, public officials and companies—that this is an essential sector for the economy, that it works tirelessly to do better every day and therefore deserves, if not support, then at least respect and consideration. In short, we are concerned about image and profitability, behind which lie many complex challenges: changes in regulation and supervision, the future evolution of interest rates, increasing litigation, the digital revolution and its threats, the emergence of new competitors with regulatory advantages stemming from shadow banking and the world of bigtechs, among many others.
As you will see, the list of challenges is not short, as it is not for almost any other sector, and it is set within the context of an extremely turbulent world. When one thinks about geopolitics, the European Union, national politics, and the fourth industrial revolution, it is clear that social, political, financial, technological and labour upheaval is a global phenomenon that is here to stay. And it is no longer the crisis, or the consequences of the crisis—still not fully overcome—that explain this state of permanent turmoil; rather, this is the world’s new state, a very complex and demanding new normal, which has given us no respite since the last crisis we left behind in 2012. A state of affairs that forces us all to react, to rethink everything that has been done—even what has been done well—to seek alternatives almost continuously, to constantly review strategies and to respond quickly to events.
But before addressing these specific aspects, I would like to speak about the role our sector plays in the functioning of the economy in general, and in our lives in particular. It is regrettable to have to insist, at this stage, on something well known to everyone: the fact that financial operators, and banks in particular, are behind all the major economic decisions in our lives—the purchase of a home, the acquisition of durable consumer goods, the management of retirement savings, the credit needed to start a business, expand its market or simply keep it running. Not to mention the use of a payment system so efficient and integrated into our lives that we do not even notice it exists; it is there, quietly, in a constant process of improvement, and it requires banks to make enormous investments. Imagine, for a moment, if it were necessary to go back to collecting salaries in cash, and then also having to pay bills for basic services in cash, such as rent, electricity, gas and heating. It would be a costly, unsafe and very burdensome way to manage our income and payments. But I am not describing a dystopian future: we would simply return to the world of our childhood, the one our parents and grandparents lived in, with collectors and cash wages, where access to the financial system was denied to very large segments of the population. (Read more)
José María Roldán, Chairman of the Spanish Banking Association
