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Governor of the Bank of Spain takes part in the 10th Conference on the Banking Sector organized by the Ivie

The Governor of the Bank of Spain, Pablo Hernández de Cos, gave the lecture “Profitability of the Spanish banking sector” at the annual Conference on the Banking Sector organized by the Ivie. Ivie’s Director and Deputy Director, Francisco Pérez and Joaquín Maudos, respectively, were in charge of opening the event and the Regional Minister for Finance and the Economic Model, Vicent Soler, offered the closing words.

In his opening words, Joaquín Maudos highlighted that, in his opinion, low profitability is still the main challenge for the banking sector. He states that “according to the latest data from the European Banking Authority, the sector has attained a profit of 8.6% in relation to its equity (ROE) for the first quarter of 2019, a value that is inferior to the 10% estimated user cost of capital”. Although the Spanish banking sector’s profitability exceeds by far that of the EU average and is higher than some European powers such as Germany (only 2.3%), France (5.3%), Italy (7.9%) and the UK (8%), according to Maudos “there is no other option but to boost efficiency”.

In this sense, the lecture given by Pablo Hernández de Cos focused on the challenges that the banking sector faces in order to increase efficiency and improve profitability. Access to the full conference, including figures and graphs, is available at: Conference by Pablo Hernández de Cos. At the end of his conference, Hernández de Cos responded to questions posed by the audience.

Ivie’s Conference on the Banking Sector celebrated its 10^th anniversary with the attendance of more than 250 people, making it a great success.