MADRID, 16 Mar. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The main Spanish banks comfortably exceeded the requirements of 100% liquidity coverage and the net stable financing ratio, according to a report prepared by Autonomous Research that uses data at the end of the fourth quarter of 2022 and to which Europa Press has had access. .
Among the large banks, CaixaBank stood out, with a liquidity coverage ratio (LCR) of 291%, followed by Sabadell, with a ratio of 234%. Behind, Bankinter registered an LCR ratio of 218%, Santander, 161% and BBVA, 159%.
This LCR ratio measures the relationship between the buffers of high-quality liquid assets that each entity has and the cash outflows that they can face during a 30-day period of liquidity stress.
It is, thus, one of the metrics that has been in the spotlight of investors after the collapse of the American Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), which it has related to a liquidity problem, and given the possibility of contagion between the American and European banks, as has happened with Credit Suisse.
In this sense, Credit Suisse has announced at dawn this Thursday that it will borrow up to 50,000 million francs (about 50,750 million euros) from the Swiss National Bank (SNB) to strengthen its liquidity in a preventive manner.
The report by Autonomous Research, an Alliance Bernstein firm that offers these figures upon request for information from investors, also gives the LCR ratios of entities such as Ibercaja, which at the end of last year had an LCR ratio of 306%, or Unicaja Banco, which had 284%. In addition, Cajamar had a ratio of 149% and Abanca, 120%.
Another liquidity ratio is the Net Stable Funding Ratio (NSFR), which requires credit institutions and investment firms to finance their long-term activities with stable sources of funding. The minimum requirement for this metric is also 100%, as in the case of the liquidity coverage ratio.
CaixaBank is the bank with the highest NSFR ratio among large entities, with 142% at the end of the fourth quarter of 2022, followed by Bankinter (140%), Sabadell (138%), BBVA (135%) and Santander (121%) .
In the case of Abanca, this ratio rises to 237%, while Ibercaja had an NSFR coefficient of 153%, Unicaja Banco, 143%, and Cajamar, 129%.
Another issue addressed by the Autonomous Research report is the percentage of deposits that are guaranteed, since in the case of SVB, most of these products were not covered by the FDIC. in English) when you exceed the coverage figure of $250,000. However, the US government finally announced that it would cover all deposits, limiting the impact of the bank’s intervention.
The study indicates that in the case of large Spanish banks, geographic diversification will play a significant role. He considers that the percentage of guaranteed deposits in developed markets does not differ significantly -although the proportion between corporate and individual deposits does vary-, but points out that the coverage in each country can vary significantly, which affects the percentage of deposits against peers focused solely on Europe.
Thus, Autonomous estimates that the percentage of guaranteed deposits is 67% in the case of CaixaBank, followed by Sabadell (64%), Bankinter (58%), BBVA (51%) and Santander (48%).
As for Ibercaja, it had a percentage of guaranteed deposits of 77%, Abanca and Unicaja, 70% each, and Cajamar, 54%, according to the firm’s estimates.
In Spain, the Deposit Guarantee Fund guarantees coverage of 100,000 euros per customer and account.
