The banks consider that the problem of access to housing in Spain is a “country challenge” caused by the lack of supply, in which the banks are in a position to provide the necessary support because there are no financing problems. There are 100,000 million of promoter credit and a level of family indebtedness of around 500,000 million euros, the lowest in several decades, explained the president of the Spanish Banking Association (AEB), Alejandra Kindelán, at the conference. annual press after the members’ assembly.
“I value yesterday’s meeting with all the agents very positively,” he said, referring to the meeting in Moncloa sponsored by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, with developers, unions, construction companies and banks. Apart from the agreement to expedite permits for the construction of homes, the developers alluded to the need for financial support from banks for industrialized homes.
“There are specific groups that can be helped, such as young people, and our sector’s responsibility is to finance, but there is no financing problem and the mortgage portfolio is very solid,” explained Kindelán. “What we want is to stimulate supply” and “regulatory predictability is something that will help encourage investments.”
The banks, which estimate mortgages and other loans to individuals granted in Spain last year at 325 billion, have just received the Government’s proposal for the ICO to guarantee 20% of young people’s mortgages for ten years. The AEB will willingly analyze its content, but it will be the banks that individually sign up.
Kindelán highlighted that, with regard to aid to mortgage holders in trouble due to increases in interest rates, the requests “have been modest” because there is “low delinquency.” “One in five renegotiations come from the code of good practice” agreed with the Government, he has said. This year the measures aimed at the middle class expire and the AEB must study their review together with the Government and the CECA, which represents CaixaBank, Unicaja and former savings banks. Banks such as Santander, BBVA, Sabadell and Bankinter appear in the AEB.
Banks are also already “prepared to see rate cuts at some point during the year.” Last year, credit to clients of AEB banks fell from 826,000 to 812,000 million euros, while doubtful assets increased by just 2,000 million euros, to 59,000 million. The granting of loans “is frozen in mortgages and loans of more than one million euros,” but below that figure activity continues to rise, Kindelán indicated.
The AEB, which has appealed against the extraordinary tax on banks and is against its becoming permanent, has another open front with the Government, although less conflictive. It is the one referred to the new authority for the defense of financial clients, whose parliamentary process the Government has recovered.
With the financing problems resolved – banks finally do not have to pay 250 euros per complaint – the bank’s request now is that the resolutions of the new customer ombudsman not become binding below 20,000 euros, but rather that the figure stands at 2,000 euros. “95% of the complaints are below this amount,” argued Kindelán.
The banks also want the nature of an unfair clause to be determined only by the Supreme Court or the EU Court of Justice. “Any lower court can cause confusion,” she said.
