Luis de Guindosvice-president of the European Central Bank, spoke about the bank tax in Spain and insisted on this subject that should not affect the solvency of the sectornor the granting of credit to families or businesses.
This is what he declared in his speech at the first Forum of the Economic Observatory, organized by the MAPFRE Research Service and El Confidencial, where he of course clarified that he did not yet know the details of said tax already in force. was approved in Congress.
“We always say that the tax “should not affect creditworthiness or the granting of credit”, De Guindos commented, also citing the example of Italy where there was a similar rate, but banks were not obliged to pay this amount if they made more provisions.
All this, after the Congress of Deputies gave the green light to a tax package including a tax on the interest margin and bank commissions, with rates between 1% and 7%and two significant deductions, part from the corporate tax rate and another extraordinary for loss of liability.
He admits that the negotiation was “complex”
“I shouldn’t go there,” De Guindos said of the option that the tax would increase legal insecurity in Spain. However, he acknowledged, even if he repeated that he did not know the details, that it was a “complex negotiation”.
Concerning the banking sector in Europe, he stressed that it is “in a good situation” and that it has “sufficient liquidity”. To conclude, he recalled that the profitability of banking capital before COVID was 4%, whereas today it is more than 10%.
