Spain: Bank of Spain to watch over finance sector mergers

Fernando Restoy, deputy governor for the Bank of Spain, has announced that the institution will be taking a greater role in watching over mergers affecting Spain’s financial sector, making sure these follow the country’s finance and competition laws.

“I foresee the Bank of Spain and the Unique Supervision Mechanism (MUS) to maintain a particular attention on these strategic decisions in the short therm” said Restoy.

The deputy governor said that there is some margin within the Spanish financial sector for “some possible” mergers, maintaining a sufficient level of competition. In this sense, he remarked on the differences with the wider European financial sector, which in his opinion “has greater excess capacity”. He also pointed out the reduction by 44% in the number of banking groups since 2007. “Spain has already done part of the job. We are discussing whether it makes sense to have any additional mergers.”

Full Content: El Mundo

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