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The defaulting of Spanish banks reaches 10,78% after decreasing last December.

The defaulting of credits awarded by Spanish banks to homes and companies increased again in January, reaching 10,78% after the brief parenthesis in December, when it dropped one point, to 10,44%, as an effect of the transfer of toxic assets to Sareb. Thus, the defaulting resumes its upward tendency after closing 2012 with the first descent after seventeen months of continuous increases which placed it in its lowest rate since July 2012.

At the end of January the Bank of Spain informed that the transfer of real estate assets of the nationalized institutions to Sareb had caused a descent of 54.000 million Euros in those credits awarded by financial institutions to families and companies in 2012. The difference between the credit portfolio accumulated by banks in November and the one in December was higher, close to 80.000 million Euros, because Sareb acquired the real estate assets with important discounts on their value in books, which in average were of 63%.

In the opinion of those experts consulted, it will be necessary to wait until March, when February´s results are published, in order to see a decrease in the defaulting, although it will never be comparable to the one registered in January, as the toxic assets from the Group 2 institutions, which needed financial aid but were not nationalized, were transferred to Sareb in February.

In order to see a natural drop of this rate, the experts add, it will be necessary to wait several quarters, as after a crisis, the default does not start to drop until the employment recovers, and this does not increase until the economy does, which will not happen until at least the end of this year.

According to the provisional data published by the Bank of Spain, the credit portfolio of banks, savings banks, credit unions and credit financial institutions was of 1583 billion Euros at the end of January, opposite to the 1604 billion Euros of the previous month, a reduction which was caused by the transfer to Sareb and not by a decrease of the credit flow.

The doubtful credits increased in January, up to 170.690 million Euros, 3227 million more than in December, when they dropped to 167.463 million Euros, 24.125 million less than the 191.588 million Euros reached in November.

Source: ABC