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El Wall Street Journal ata una nueva piedra al cuello de la banca española, en un artículo en el que viene a decir que dejemos en segundo plano las cifras oficiales de jovenlandesesidad, en un 13%, para centrarnos en los activos problemáticos o como dicen en inglés, "nonperforming". Aquí la cifra llega hasta el 22% de los activos totales de la banca española. Según un analista de Merril Lynch, 433.000 millones de euros de activos bancarios españoles son problemáticos.
En el artículo se incluye el segundo cuadro, que deja bastante malparados a nuestros bancos más importantes:
El artículo al completo:
Spanish Bad-Debt Data Tell Divergent Stories - WSJ
MADRID—Spanish banks say a modest decline in bad loans in recent months marks a postcrisis turning point. But analysts warn that a more-comprehensive measure of the banks' health points to a longer road to recovery for lenders.
After a vicious real-estate bust and a deep recession, Spanish banks' nonperforming loans—cases in which borrowers have fallen behind or defaulted on payments—have edged down to 13.4% of total loans as of April from a record-high 13.6% in December, according to Spain's central bank.
But some analysts say investors should be looking at the banks' nonperforming assets, a broader metric that includes repossessed real-estate assets and some restructured loans, including those transferred to Spain's "bad bank" entity.
At the end of the first quarter, those nonperforming assets totaled €€372 billion ($506 billion), meaning bad debts are around 22% of lenders' total loans, according to Exane BNP Paribas BNP.FR +0.86% analyst Santiago López Díaz.
"It seems we are close to (or even past) the peak of officially reported nonperforming loan figures, but not everything that glitters is gold," Mr. López Díaz wrote recently. "Reported nonperforming loans clearly understate the order of magnitude of the credit-quality disaster."
Nonperforming assets are a better measure of banks' health, some analysts say, because the metric shows the full extent of bad debts the lenders have to work through and provides a more realistic picture of the continued drag on earnings that banks face. It captures foreclosed homes a bank will have to try to sell and repeatedly refinanced loans to property developers or other businesses that are unlikely to be paid.
antiestéticars about the health of Southern European banks have largely eased over the past year. But they rushed back into the spotlight last week when worries about Banco Espírito Santo, BES.LB -7.48% one of Portugal's biggest lenders, sparked a market selloff across the continent.
Spanish banks have been among the biggest beneficiaries of the returning market confidence. Shares of the four largest Spanish banks whose main business is in the country have risen an average of 17.8% since the beginning of the year, compared to a 2.5% decline in the Stoxx European banks index, as investors cheer Spain's nascent economic recovery.
But the debate over whether Spanish banks are providing investors with a helpful snapshot of their health is a sign of the lingering antiestéticars about what lurks on European bank balance sheets.
Spanish banks routinely disclose their nonperforming loans, but they don't provide detailed quarterly figures for nonperforming assets.
The information that banks report each quarter is often insufficient to determine the total volume of bad assets, says Alberto Postigo, a Moody's Investors Service analyst in Madrid.
Nonperforming loans at the six largest Spanish banks fell or were flat in the first quarter of this year compared with the fourth quarter of 2013. But nonperforming assets at four of those banks— Caixabank SA, CABK.MC +1.22% Banco de Sabadell SA, SAB.MC +1.00% Bankia SA BKIA.MC +1.00% and Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA BBVA.MC +0.76% —declined less quickly, and actually increased at Banco Popular Español SA, POP.MC +0.26% according to Sergio Gamez, a Bank of America BAC +1.24% Merrill Lynch analyst.
Mr. Gamez estimates that Spanish banks' total nonperforming assets are equivalent to €433 billion, or 40% of the Spanish economy.
Caixabank, for instance, recorded a 5.3% fall in nonperforming-loan volume from the fourth quarter of 2013 to the first quarter of this year, but only a 2.5% drop in nonperforming assets, according to Mr. Gamez.
Banco Santander SA SAN.MC +1.18% was the exception. The lender reported no change in its nonperforming loans quarter over quarter and a 0.9% decrease in nonperforming assets in its Spanish unit, according to Mr. Gamez.
Representatives for Caixabank, Sabadell, Bankia and Santander declined to comment. A BBVA spokeswoman says nonperforming loans are a better way to measure future trends in asset quality because they are a "leading indicator" of loan defaults.
A Banco Popular spokesman says he disagrees with the Bank of America analysis. The bank's nonperforming loans and assets both fell, he says.
One potential explanation for the discrepancy between nonperforming loans and assets: Banks could be accelerating foreclosures, analysts suggest. Foreclosing on a home would move an overdue mortgage loan from the nonperforming-loans bucket into the one for nonperforming assets.
Indeed, an analysis by Mr. Gamez shows that the six largest Spanish banks increased the number of foreclosures by an average 2.2% from the fourth quarter of 2013 to the first quarter of this year.
Banks are likely to have to step up what they disclose, and how often, when the European Central Bank takes over in November as the regulator for the euro zone's largest banks, says Robert Tornabell, a professor of banking at ESADE Business School in Barcelona.
An ECB spokeswoman says that every quarter, banks will have to disclose their "nonperforming exposures," which includes loans and other credit risks, although that change won't take effect in November. The majority of banks will have to disclose foreclosures and repossessions "regularly," she added.
For now, Spanish banks continue to highlight their nonperforming loans.
Banco Popular Chairman Ángel Ron touted the first-quarter improvement in the bank's nonperforming-loan volume during a June conference in the northern Spanish city of Santander, titled "Europe Leaves the Crisis Behind."
"Based on the internal numbers that we have at the bank, we would anticipate that we are going to see an improvement in bad loans in upcoming quarters as well," Mr. Ron said. "This is very good news."
But Banco Popular's nonperforming assets actually grew 0.3% from the fourth quarter to the first quarter, according to Mr. Gamez. The Banco Popular spokesman disagrees. He says the bank´s nonperforming assets fell 0.9%.
En el artículo se incluye el segundo cuadro, que deja bastante malparados a nuestros bancos más importantes:
El artículo al completo:
Spanish Bad-Debt Data Tell Divergent Stories - WSJ
MADRID—Spanish banks say a modest decline in bad loans in recent months marks a postcrisis turning point. But analysts warn that a more-comprehensive measure of the banks' health points to a longer road to recovery for lenders.
After a vicious real-estate bust and a deep recession, Spanish banks' nonperforming loans—cases in which borrowers have fallen behind or defaulted on payments—have edged down to 13.4% of total loans as of April from a record-high 13.6% in December, according to Spain's central bank.
But some analysts say investors should be looking at the banks' nonperforming assets, a broader metric that includes repossessed real-estate assets and some restructured loans, including those transferred to Spain's "bad bank" entity.
At the end of the first quarter, those nonperforming assets totaled €€372 billion ($506 billion), meaning bad debts are around 22% of lenders' total loans, according to Exane BNP Paribas BNP.FR +0.86% analyst Santiago López Díaz.
"It seems we are close to (or even past) the peak of officially reported nonperforming loan figures, but not everything that glitters is gold," Mr. López Díaz wrote recently. "Reported nonperforming loans clearly understate the order of magnitude of the credit-quality disaster."
Nonperforming assets are a better measure of banks' health, some analysts say, because the metric shows the full extent of bad debts the lenders have to work through and provides a more realistic picture of the continued drag on earnings that banks face. It captures foreclosed homes a bank will have to try to sell and repeatedly refinanced loans to property developers or other businesses that are unlikely to be paid.
antiestéticars about the health of Southern European banks have largely eased over the past year. But they rushed back into the spotlight last week when worries about Banco Espírito Santo, BES.LB -7.48% one of Portugal's biggest lenders, sparked a market selloff across the continent.
Spanish banks have been among the biggest beneficiaries of the returning market confidence. Shares of the four largest Spanish banks whose main business is in the country have risen an average of 17.8% since the beginning of the year, compared to a 2.5% decline in the Stoxx European banks index, as investors cheer Spain's nascent economic recovery.
But the debate over whether Spanish banks are providing investors with a helpful snapshot of their health is a sign of the lingering antiestéticars about what lurks on European bank balance sheets.
Spanish banks routinely disclose their nonperforming loans, but they don't provide detailed quarterly figures for nonperforming assets.
The information that banks report each quarter is often insufficient to determine the total volume of bad assets, says Alberto Postigo, a Moody's Investors Service analyst in Madrid.
Nonperforming loans at the six largest Spanish banks fell or were flat in the first quarter of this year compared with the fourth quarter of 2013. But nonperforming assets at four of those banks— Caixabank SA, CABK.MC +1.22% Banco de Sabadell SA, SAB.MC +1.00% Bankia SA BKIA.MC +1.00% and Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA BBVA.MC +0.76% —declined less quickly, and actually increased at Banco Popular Español SA, POP.MC +0.26% according to Sergio Gamez, a Bank of America BAC +1.24% Merrill Lynch analyst.
Mr. Gamez estimates that Spanish banks' total nonperforming assets are equivalent to €433 billion, or 40% of the Spanish economy.
Caixabank, for instance, recorded a 5.3% fall in nonperforming-loan volume from the fourth quarter of 2013 to the first quarter of this year, but only a 2.5% drop in nonperforming assets, according to Mr. Gamez.
Banco Santander SA SAN.MC +1.18% was the exception. The lender reported no change in its nonperforming loans quarter over quarter and a 0.9% decrease in nonperforming assets in its Spanish unit, according to Mr. Gamez.
Representatives for Caixabank, Sabadell, Bankia and Santander declined to comment. A BBVA spokeswoman says nonperforming loans are a better way to measure future trends in asset quality because they are a "leading indicator" of loan defaults.
A Banco Popular spokesman says he disagrees with the Bank of America analysis. The bank's nonperforming loans and assets both fell, he says.
One potential explanation for the discrepancy between nonperforming loans and assets: Banks could be accelerating foreclosures, analysts suggest. Foreclosing on a home would move an overdue mortgage loan from the nonperforming-loans bucket into the one for nonperforming assets.
Indeed, an analysis by Mr. Gamez shows that the six largest Spanish banks increased the number of foreclosures by an average 2.2% from the fourth quarter of 2013 to the first quarter of this year.
Banks are likely to have to step up what they disclose, and how often, when the European Central Bank takes over in November as the regulator for the euro zone's largest banks, says Robert Tornabell, a professor of banking at ESADE Business School in Barcelona.
An ECB spokeswoman says that every quarter, banks will have to disclose their "nonperforming exposures," which includes loans and other credit risks, although that change won't take effect in November. The majority of banks will have to disclose foreclosures and repossessions "regularly," she added.
For now, Spanish banks continue to highlight their nonperforming loans.
Banco Popular Chairman Ángel Ron touted the first-quarter improvement in the bank's nonperforming-loan volume during a June conference in the northern Spanish city of Santander, titled "Europe Leaves the Crisis Behind."
"Based on the internal numbers that we have at the bank, we would anticipate that we are going to see an improvement in bad loans in upcoming quarters as well," Mr. Ron said. "This is very good news."
But Banco Popular's nonperforming assets actually grew 0.3% from the fourth quarter to the first quarter, according to Mr. Gamez. The Banco Popular spokesman disagrees. He says the bank´s nonperforming assets fell 0.9%.
