Spain’s financial sector revival on track

Spain’s financial sector programme remains on track, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said after its fourth monitoring mission to the country. A staff team from the IMF visited Madrid from September 16 to 30 for the fourth independent monitoring mission of the financial sector in the context of the European financial assistance for bank recapitalization. The team met with official and private-sector representatives and discussed its preliminary findings with the Spanish authorities and their European partners at the end of the visit. Staff will convey a final report to the authorities and the EC by mid-November. The mission found that implementation of Spain’s financial sector programme remains on track. Nearly all measures specified in the programme have now been implemented, as envisaged under its front-loaded timetable, the IMF said. Of note, capital-augmentation measures arising from last year’s stress test are now essentially complete, as is SAREB’s (Company for the Management of Assets proceeding from Restructuring of the Banking System) organizational development. SAREB is a company responsible for managing assets transferred by the four nationalized Spanish financial institutions BFA-Bankia, Catalunya Banc, NGC Banco-Banco Gallego and Banco de Valencia. SAREB is deploying a wide range of strategies for liquidating its assets, which it is now doing at an accelerating pace. Actions under the program since its inception have bolstered the financial system’s capital, liquidity, and efficiency. Such effects have added to key policy measures at the European level to help support improved financial market conditions and a sizeable fall in Spain’s sovereign risk premium since mid-2012, the IMF added.