Last Thursday afternoon, the approval of the extension of the bank tax was announced, which will be valid for three years (until 2028) but which will undergo some modifications in its structure, to make it more progressive than that of this year, set at 4.8. % on profits net of interest and commissions.
Thus, the new structure, made up of several sections which progressively tax the profits of this sector, from 0% for the first 100 million to 7% for everything exceeding 5.1 billion, has a direct consequence on the impact that would suffer each individual. one of the entities in its services. According to Barclays experts, the bank most penalized by this change is CaixaBank, with a 2% drop in its earnings per share estimated for 2025.
And this was reflected in the stock market. During these five sessions which have since passed, the Spanish sector fell by 5% of its value compared to 0.9% of the Ibex 35. Logically, there are differences between the six entities and clearly the market has recognized that it will suffer the greatest impact CaixaBank. However, the 7% penalty on the stock market This far exceeds the expected drop in profits, as happened for the rest of the companies.
In the case of BBVA, the drop is a little more than 5% despite the fact that the deterioration in profits will remain at 0.2%, according to Barclays calculations. In Santanderwhere the profit loss compared to the previous regulation is 0.3%, investors sold, causing them to fall more than 4% in these five days.
The three banks which benefit from the proposed tax change have also not been spared from heavy stock market losses, which are Bankinter, Unicaja and Sabadellwho loses a 1.5, 4 and 5% during this stock market period. “This tax was expected and we believe that it should not worry the market, even if maintaining a tax that is not easily linked to extraordinary profits can generate uncertainty among shareholders, contributing to a certain degree of stigmatization towards shareholders. Spanish banks, particularly national ones”, they point out at Deutsche Bank.
“Obviously, the final impact should not be too damaging compared to the previous three years, even for the one most affected, namely CaixaBank,” continues the German entity. “On the other hand, banks that had been taxed disproportionately this year, are now treated more fairly, like Unicaja, so, although the continuation of the tax is never good news, at least that does not make what exists worse,” they conclude.
The maximums of the year are moving away
The sector in Spain, compiled by the Ibex Banks index, is already listed on lows not seen since August after these falls, now being more than 10% away from reaching the highest levels of the year, reached at the end of April.
But not everyone has the same lost path. Bankinter cedes less than 8% of the annual ceiling while BBVA has already retraced more than 20%also penalized by the open public takeover bid for Sabadell, which could be derailed at any time due to the obstacles that competition probably imposes.
For their part, Sabadell, Unicaja, Santander and CaixaBank they are already dropping double digits from annual highspenalized by the acceleration of expectations of rate cuts in recent weeks.
