NPL&REO News

Portuguese banks brace for worsening asset quality in 2021

6 May, 2021

Loan moratoria and other policy measures have protected Portuguese banks’ asset quality so far during the COVID-19 pandemic, but this may change in 2021 as many programs are unwound, DBRS Morningstar said in a report April 8.

Despite a doubling of loan loss provisions, the stock of nonperforming loans at a group of Portugal’s largest banks shrunk by more than a fifth in 2020, the credit rating agency estimated. Its sample included Caixa Geral de Depósitos SA, Banco Comercial Português SA, Novo Banco SA, Banco Santander Totta SA, Banco BPI SA and Caixa Económica Montepio Geral.

Banco de Portugal data shows a similar trend for the whole banking system, with 2020 loan loss charges — measuring total credit impairments as a percentage of average gross customer loans — nearly doubling to 1.03% from 0.52% in 2019, and the NPL stock dropping to €14.36 billion in 2020 from €17.20 billion a year ago.

NPL sales, write-offs and cures helped reduce the bad loan stock in 2020 and COVID-19-related policy measures have staved off the impact of the economic downturn on banks’ credit portfolios, DBRS Morningstar said.

“Our view is that asset quality may deteriorate from late 2021 with the eventual loosening of moratoria and other support schemes,” Nicola de Caro, senior vice president at the global financial institutions team of DBRS Morningstar told S&P Global Market Intelligence.

With over 20% of total loans under moratoria, Portugal’s banks are among the most dependent on such pandemic support schemes in Europe. The majority of these loans comprise exposures to small and medium-sized enterprises which are set to expire in the third quarter of 2021, DBRS Morningstar said.

At 2020-end, Portugal’s banking system had the third-largest stock of loans and advances under moratoria, of €41.5 billion, according to data by the European Banking Authority. Italy and Spain ranked first and second with a stock of €115.6 billion and €57.9 billion, respectively.

Bad loan risk

According to current estimates out of Portugal, up to 10% of loans currently under moratoria could “go bad” in the future, Olivia Perney Guillot, managing director at the financial institutions team of Fitch Ratings, said in an interview. Fitch expects asset quality to deteriorate in 2021 but some banks in southern Europe will be able to offset some of the negative impact through NPL sales and write-offs as they did in 2020, Rafael Quina, on the financial institutions team at Fitch Ratings, said.

The NPL ratio for loans in already-expired moratoria schemes in Portugal stood at 2.8% at the end of 2020, almost as high as the 2.9% in Italy but lower than the 4.2% in Spain, EBA data shows.

There will be wide differences in risk depending on the borrower type, Quina said. Residential mortgages, for example, would be typically less risky than exposure to unable-to-pay SMEs that are in the tourism sector, he told S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Based on its exposure, Portugal is the fourth most-dependent country on the tourism sector in the eurozone, DBRS Morningstar estimated in a Sept. 14, 2020 report. The country ranked second by the share of tourism sector contribution to GDP — 16.5%, and third by the share tourism employment to total employment — 18.6%, according to the report.

“In DBRS Morningstar’s view, the longer the epidemiological situation continues, the greater the risk that the travel and tourism industries in these countries will suffer more lasting damage, resulting in permanent job losses and closures of some businesses. Even after the travel restrictions are largely lifted across geographies, the fear of travel might linger for longer,” the rating agency said at the time.

Original Story: SP Global| Vanya Damyanova
Photo: Photo by Alfonso Romero from FreeImages.com
Edition: Prime Yield

Brazil’s central bank to make bank liquidity measure permanent

6 May, 2021

Brazil’s central bank will make permanent one of its pandemic crisis-fighting measures from last year of offering banks liquidity in exchange for private sector credit as collateral, instead of public debt, as had been the case before.

In an online event broadcast by the International Monetary Fund as part of its spring meetings, central bank president Roberto Campos Neto said this will help banks and Brazil’s nascent corporate bond market.

“This changes the whole chain of issuing private debt and the way we see private debt. Banks can charge less premium when they hold private debt on the balance sheet because now they know they can get liquidity out of that,” Campos Neto said.

“This is a change that we are going to make permanent, and we are designing a system to make that permanent,” he said.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic just over a year ago, the central bank unveiled measures providing the financial system with up to 1.3 trillion reais ($225 billion) of liquidity, worth around 18.5% of gross domestic product.

Central bank figures show that within that overall package, loans backed by private sector debentures totalled up to 91 billion reais.

On monetary policy and inflation, Campos Neto repeated his view that front-loading interest rate hikes means they will not need to be raised as much in the end.

Brazil’s central bank began a “partial normalization” of monetary policy last month, raising its benchmark Selic rate by 75 basis points to 2.75% and, barring a major change in outlook, pledging to do so again next month.

Inflation is running well above the bank’s year-end target of 3.75%, the exchange rate is weak, and the fiscal outlook is deteriorating. All that points to continued tightening, despite the pandemic and darkening growth picture.

Campos Neto also warned that the rise in borrowing costs in some advanced economies will result in “some level of distress” for emerging countries like Brazil.

Original Story: Reuters | Jamie McGeever
Photo: Banco Central do Brasil website
Edition: Prime Yield

CaixaBank rules out mortgages and deposits as strategic in the future

6 May, 2021

The new CaixaBank started up just 10 days ago after the absorption of Bankia and its CEO, Gonzalo Gortázar, has already outlined some details on the strategy of the largest bank in Spain to face the profitability problems of the traditional business due to the negative interest rates. The main executive of the entity has defended in an event organized by ‘El Confidencial’ that the traditional activity of deposits and mortgages no longer works and has opted to grow through new businesses.

“The business of taking deposits and giving mortgages does not work with negative interest rates,” said Gortázar in a discussion where he coincided with the deputy governor of the Bank of Spain, Margarita Delgado. The CEO of CaixaBank has indicated that “today” the function of taking deposits “makes us lose money”. And it considers that this loss is only cushioned “in part” with the granting of loans. “We want them to bring the money to the bank but you see that something does not work if such an important function is not profitable, but quite the opposite,” stressed the manager.

Gortázar has acknowledged that before the pandemic the market was counting on a rise in interest rates soon, but now the situation is different. “We have been with negative rates for five years and the market expects there to be at least another five,” stated the CEO of CaixaBank. To this he added that, with the current demographic and economic model of the euro zone, “you have to think that interest rates are going to be very low for life.”

In this sense, Gortázar has pointed out that a consequence of this monetary policy is that it affects the profitability of the bank, although he has clarified that he prefers “these secondary effects” to a “disease” due to a credit crisis, as happened after the bursting of the housing bubble. This means that “the return on credit production is not enough to compensate for losses on deposits” and therefore advocates “seeking new income for the banking system.”

“We have to broaden the vision outside the box, so that the numbers add up. If not, we can only continue cutting costs and dwarfing ourselves, and that, in the end, is a trip to zero”, defended Gortázar during the discussion. The manager has recognized that the way of charging more commissions to clients so that the bank offices remain open “do not make practical sense” because “people do not accept them and do not understand them.”

It is at this point where the CEO of CaixaBank is committed to “offering more things” to customers, in order to find new revenue streams for banking. In this way, he advocates moving from a “banking services” company to a “financial services” platform. This section includes activities such as insurance or investment funds. In both businesses, CaixaBank has seen its dominance position strengthened with the absorption of Bankia. “We have to find a joint package that works,” said the manager.

These activities are the ones that are moving the banking sector in recent years since they allow new income in commissions for the management of their clients’ assets, compared to income from interest on loans that is in decline. More than a quarter of the fees charged by banks in 2020 already came from investment funds, pension plans or insurance.

To these businesses, Gortázar has indicated that others are being added in the bank in recent times, such as activities “more at the limit” of the financial business field such as mobile financing or renting. The sale of alarms also appears among the attractive businesses for CaixaBank, where it has an alliance with Securitas Direct. All these activities, he pointed out, “already offer us almost 100 million euros in the income statement”.

Original Story: Spain News | Diego Larrouy
Photo: Caixa Bank website
Edition: Prime Yield

Greece gains EU okay to extend ‘Hercules’ bad loan reduction scheme

4 May, 2021

Greece already secured approval from EU competition regulators to extend its “Hercules” bad loan reduction scheme to help banks reduce the mountain of impaired credit burdening their balance sheets.

The scheme was launched in October 2019 to help the country’s banks offload up to 30 billion euros of bad loans by turning bundles of impaired loans into asset-backed securities that can be sold to investors. Athens wants to prolong the scheme to October 2022.

The European Commission said its approval was on the basis that not state aid would be involved.

“I welcome the prolongation of the Hercules scheme, which has already been very successful in providing a market conform solution to remove non-performing loans from the balance sheets of Greek banks, without granting aid or distorting competition,” European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said in a statement.

Original Story: Reuters | Staff
Photo: Photo by Szymon Szymon in FreeImages.com
Edition: Prime Yield