The CEO of Banco Sabadell, Cesar González Bueno, has criticized the drop in demand for credit that Spanish financial institutions are experiencing. “We are seeing a certain reduction in the demand for credit, especially in the demand for investment in companies and in mortgages, which are consequences of the ECB’s monetary policy and the rate increases, but they are moderate and not radical falls,” he explained in the executive. during his speech at the XIV Financial Meeting of the banking sector, organized this Monday in Madrid by KPMG and the newspaper Expansión.
In his review of the situation in the sector, González Bueno has put forward an idea that is totally contrary to the one presented earlier in the day by the vice president of the ECB, Luis de Guindo, who described the profitability of banking as a “mirage effect.”
For the CEO of Banco Sabadell, the evolution of the sector’s results still has some way to go. “We expect financial results to continue improving until the middle of next year. There is optimism in results for the 23rd and 24th,” he insisted.
Among the reasons that support this statement is that according to González Bueno, the credit that has suffered due to the rise in rates has been the investment credit of companies and mortgages, but consumer credit of both companies and individuals continues to increase.
In this context, the financial sector will be characterized in the coming years by “stability” and the absence of mergers because “there is no reason for entities to seek changes in perimeter.”
This is the case of Banco Sabadell, whose objective is to maintain the business strategy that it has been implementing over the last three years. “There will not be a new strategic plan, we continue along the lines of the current one and we will give key signals to the market,” César González Bueno ruled out.
Consistent with this strategy, it has also ruled out the sale of the bank’s business in the United Kingdom. “Our business in the United Kingdom has caused a lot of disappointment, we lost 500 million euros, but now it is reporting income of 300 million,” he explained. A change that has been possible thanks to the specialization of the entity’s services in mortgage products. Even so, González Bueno has acknowledged that he does not expect that the years 2023 and 2024 “will not be years of great success” in his United Kingdom business, but even so “the perimeter of the bank will not change.”
