Blogs and advice from Industry leading Specialists
Valuable Opinions, Comments & Gossip
Financial related News & Articles relating to Spain
Latest News, Stories
& Hot Topics
Various Tools & Widgets to help with your financial needs
Tools & Widgets to
help with finances
Polls, Surveys and Opinions featured throughout Tumbit
Featured Polls, Surveys & Stats
Discussions, Advice & Topical Chat
Discussions, Advice & Topical Chat

Spain lenders brace for tough year-end as new rules bite

Source: Reuters - Sun 30th Jun 2013
Spain lenders brace for tough year-end as new rules bite

Spanish lenders are bracing for lower profits and dividends and a tougher funding environment under new rules meant to prepare them for pan-European supervision next year and avoid a repeat of last year's multi-billion-euro bailout.

On Thursday, the Bank of Spain urged lenders to cap cash payouts to shareholders to the equivalent of 25% of profit and to be cautious on dividends paid in shares.

That came hard on the heels of another recommendation from the central bank to calculate the impact of removing minimum interest rate clauses on residential mortgages, a move that would lower payments for homemakers but hit bank profit.

Also a long-awaited European deal on how to distribute the cost of bank rescues hit share prices last week of some banks in the region's weaker countries, including Spain, on fears they could find it harder to attract funding.

Three banking sources said the new rules did not bode well for the 2nd half of the year because they left investors with the impression that banks had not been fully cleaned up and that more measures were still to come.

"The new guidelines on dividends introduce more uncertainty in a sector which already registers high levels of insecurity at a time when the volume of additional provisions that banks will need to book is still unknown," said one of the banking sources, who declined to be named.

Lenders had already been asked by the Bank of Spain to review by September their €208 billion in portfolios of refinanced loans.

Economy Minister Luis de Guindos said lenders would probably have to book another €10 billion in provisions to cover potential losses on those loans and seek €2 billion in fresh capital once the review is complete.

This would add to the more than €80 billion booked last year, which hit profit across the board, forced some lenders to scrap dividend payments or raise new funds on the stock and bond markets and prompted the government to seek €42 billion from the EU to recapitalize the weakest ones.

HEADWINDS ?

The massive write downs and the European-financed bailout have partly restored confidence in the Spanish financial system after it was devastated 5 years ago when a decade-long property bubble burst.

The rescue has so far failed to reactivate bank lending to Spanish companies and households, while the rate of non-performing loans continues to rise.

The banking source said the latest guidelines on dividends were dictated by the IMF, which earlier in June called on Spanish lenders to reinforce the quantity and quality of their capital by being prudent on cash dividends.

The source also said the Bank of Spain wanted all Spanish lenders to be fully cleaned up and well capitalized before pan-European stress tests next year.

In the short term, however, banks such as Popular and Sabadell, which did not need public aid last year, may face headwinds.

Both have high levels of refinanced loans, have heavily used clauses in mortgage contracts that set floors on interest rates and may find it more difficult to fund themselves under the new EU regime, which mean that second-tier banks in the periphery of the euro zone are likely to have to pay a premium to attract equity and debt investors.

The new guidelines may make it hard for them to stick to their dividend plans for 2013, analysts say.

They also say that other banks that have ridden out Spain's crisis until now, including Spain's 3-biggest lenders Santander, BBVA and Caixabank as well as Bankinter, may have to adapt for different reasons.

"Santander and Caixabank dividends per share are probably too high. Bankinter probably needs to adjust downwards its cash dividend per share because payout exceeds 25%... BBVA could move to more scrips (dividends paid in shares)," Carlos Garcia Gonzalez, an analyst at Societe Generale, wrote on Friday in a note to clients.

State-owned banks including Bankia are not safer. Although they already had a ban on dividends until 2014, the 3 other regulations may weigh on the capacity of the government to apply their restructuring plans and quickly sell them, analysts say.

Comment on this Story

 
Be the first to comment on this Story !!

Related Partners

Recommended Items

Related Articles

Related Blogs