Spain’s Banks have speed up the sales process of their nonperforming loans (NPL) portfolios in the end of the year. The regulatory watchdogs are increasing the pressure towards an NPL ratio reduction among the country’s banking system.

Since the end of 2019 and up to the beginning of the new year, Spanish banks have sold – or are about to sell – more than €8 billion in NPL. The big news in relation to the last few years is that now these big portfolios aren’t just comprising mortgages only, but also consumer loans without collateral (unsecured) granted to companies and households.

In fact, these days there is more value “unsecured” than “secured” among the latest portfolios sold. Its presence is increasingly bigger in the portfolios, and is no coincidence that the nonperforming rate in the consumer credit is already surpassing the 5% of the general ratio, and in volume, has already reached €5 billion in overdue loans with a double digit annual growth.

The largest porftolios recently sold are those from BBVA, totalling €5 billion in toxic debt of which half correspond to unsecured loans – the largest portfolio with these features to be ever sold in the Spanish market. In specific, the bank sold its Project June, woth more than 300,000 upaid loan contracts, to opportunistic Swedish fund Intrum. On the other hand, in the end of 2019  the bank also sold its €2.5 billion Project Hera, made up largely of loans to SMEs, to Cabot and Carval.

Caixa Bank, for its hand, completed the sale of the €865 million Astún portfolio, comprising unpaid credits to households and corporates. Intrum was the buyer, along with 50% of the Vento portfolio, sold by Banco Sabadell.

Original Story: El Confidencial | Óscar Jimenez
Photo: Photo by Victor Iglesias from FreeImages
Edition: Prime Yield