The crisis has been very painful, and despite being officially overcome, its consequences are still felt. Society as a whole has made sacrifices to heal the wounds, but this will not be fully achieved if we remain anchored in the past and, above all, if we view that past without the temperance of a rigorous analysis of what truly happened. The banking sector is one of those that suffers most from this process of continuous, intemperate review, in a world where disinformation is one of the greatest risks we all face. <\/p>\n
There are several topics that are a constant focus of media interest, where rigor is essential. The first is the public money used in Spain to clean up some financial institutions during the crisis. It is often overlooked that taxpayer money is supplemented by private money contributed by the banks themselves, such as the more than 20 billion euros they allocate to the Deposit Guarantee Fund to rescue depositors from troubled institutions. One in three euros from the bailout of troubled savings banks is contributed by healthy institutions. We all want to see the recovery of those funds, which were dedicated to achieving a healthy, solvent financial system capable of financing businesses and families. <\/p>\n
Banking consolidation is a structural global trend seeking efficiency and economies of scale. The combination of regulatory changes, digital revolution, cybersecurity, sustainability, and low structural profitability drives a necessary process of sector concentration. The restructuring carried out in Spain over the last decade, driven by the crisis, has been far ahead of the process in the main European countries, which explains why Spanish banking is more efficient and leads digital transformation in Europe to meet the growing demands of its customers. And it does this in a highly competitive environment, as authorities make clear with their recurrent warnings to try to prevent “price wars.” The latest came from the Deputy Governor of the Bank of Spain, Margarita Delgado, when she recently called for “institutions to apply an appropriate product-level pricing policy that is coherent, exhaustive, and rigorous to ensure that the price charged for a product or service corresponds at least to its total cost, including the risk premium inherent in each type of operation.”<\/em> <\/p>\n The adjustment of branches is a consequence of sector consolidation and society’s digital revolution, without it being easy to determine which of the two factors is predominant. The closure of branches in Spain has focused on large towns and municipalities with more than 10,000 inhabitants, correcting duplications: more than 90% of the Spanish population lives in municipalities with between two and five institutions. According to the Bank of Spain, only 2.7% of the population lives in municipalities without a physical branch\u2014in most cases, there never was one\u2014but near other municipalities where there are branches. In all these cases, banks offer different options to serve their customers, including ATMs, mobile offices, commercial agents, and digitalization. This explains why the World Bank considers financial inclusion in Spain to be one of the highest in Europe, where access to financial services is easy and at a price well below the European average. According to a Deloitte report, the prices of financial services in our country are 58% lower than in Europe, and three out of four are free. <\/p>\n It is also not easy to specify which factor may have weighed most heavily on employment adjustments in our sector over the last decade. We can speak of organizational causes derived from consolidation processes, economic causes due to the deterioration of profitability in Spain compared to the improvement obtained from international business, or causes derived from digital transformation. What is clear is that in almost all cases, these are non-traumatic and agreed-upon employment adjustments that are part of a generalized process of streamlining banking commercial structures worldwide. As ECB President Mario Draghi recently insisted, “the European banking sector is overcrowded, in terms of branches and people.”<\/em> <\/p>\n Over the last decade, banks in Spain have undertaken an intense process of clean-up, recapitalization, and restructuring that has made them stronger entities than before the crisis. They also take the initiative to improve, promoting changes in banking culture by supporting responsible practices and sustainable finance. They listen to their customers to continue improving, while adapting to the demanding requirements of authorities in terms of regulation and supervision. They look to the future, just as their customers do. <\/p>\n