Luis de Guindos, vice president of the European Central Bank (ECB)is still cautious about how the new banking tax planned by the Government with its partners will end. But that has not been an obstacle for the supervisor’s director to send a message to the Executive that the tax should not affect either the solvency of the entities or the granting of credit by them. This was stated on the second day of the 31st Financial Sector Meeting organized by ABC and Deloitte, which was inaugurated by Yolanda Gómez, deputy director of ABC, and Juan Pérez de Ayala, partner responsible for financial services at Deloitte.
“Taxes on banks should not affect the solvency of entities or the granting of credit,” De Guindos indicated, adding that if the tax that is currently being processed in parliament is finally finalized, they will study it background. “If there is a modification, we will see it, we will analyze it”he has indicated. It should be remembered that when the temporary tax was established at the end of 2022, the ECB already issued an opinion contrary to it. Now, if there are substantial changes in the configuration of the tax, the supervisor could rule again.
Regarding the details of the tax, the vice president of the ECB has given the example of how Italy configured its tax at the time. «The Italian tax was that if you dedicated part of the profit to increasing your solvency, you reduced your contributions. It was a more appropriate approach compared to what the Spanish approach has been,” he said.
De Guindos has also entered the traditional debate that exists about the difference between the valuations of European and American banks, something that is usually attributed to regulation. The vice president of the ECB has indicated that his position is not so much that regulation explains this difference but that other factors influence it.
«The valuation of European banks in relation to American banks is lower. I think it has nothing to do with regulation but with the fact that in USA The growth potential is higher than in Europe and the markets discount it; In Europe there is no real banking union; and there are issues that generate uncertainty such as bank taxes, etc.,” highlighted the director of the banking supervisor.
The United States, thus, has focused a good part of its intervention and not only in banking terms but also the uncertainty that is now opening up with the return of donald trump to the White House. A return that threatens to unleash a protectionist wave in the United States.
“We have to see the measures that are taken,” De Guindos has said cautiously, although in his case he is clear that the protectionism that Trump threatens is bad news for the global economy. «Protectionism ends up generating a ‘supply shock’ in the world economy that limits growth and is not positive from the point of view of inflation. When you raise tariffs, sometimes you don’t expect the jurisdiction on which you have imposed the measures to react, and it usually reacts with an increase in tariffs. This can lead to a trade war and is very negative from the point of view of the world economy.», he commented.
The big risk here is entering a spiral of tariffs between the United States and Europe, as well as with the rest of the world. But there are also other elements of Trump’s economic policy that generate concern in the ECB, such as the orientation of fiscal policy, and also the management of immigration in light of the promise made by the new North American president of mass deportations.
Now more in a European key, De Guindos has explained that the growth in the euro zone It has not been as expected, mainly due to one factor: consumption has not increased. And that, he says, “has to do with an issue of trust; Family consumption depends on what economists call permanent income, what you project in coming years. The confidence indicators, although they are improving, have not improved as much as we expected.
What it does celebrate, however, is the evolution that inflation has had, having gone from rates above 10% to now around 2%, in line with the ECB’s objective. The concern, in this case, lies in the inflation of services, which moves around 4%, but the vice president of the ECB is convinced that “inflation is going to converge in a clear and stable manner towards stability.” of prices.
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