Func it expected to close another 3,000 banking offices and cut 15,000 more jobs by 2019 – Yahoo Finance Spain

Entities face a context of low margins accentuated by the negative input of Euribor for the first time in history

MADRID, 6 (EUROPE PRESS)

the Foundation of Savings banks (Func) estimates that mergers between banks to meet business accentuated reduction adjustments suffered by the financial sector during the crisis. Additional cuts to the new banking landscape will involve the closure of some 3,000 offices and downsizing other 14,688 employees until 2019.

In particular, the foundation points out that the number of branches was reduced from 37,903 to 31,021 offices from 2012 to 2015, when templates were reduced from 231,389 to 194,688 workers, including early retirement. Now, the new twist in search of profitability will reduce the workforce to 180,000 employees and will narrow the network to some 28,000 offices.

The banking sector faces a future that seems to point to prolong consolidation after set up a banking map consists of 15 financial institutions. The new European regulations, with the launch of the single supervisor, also encourages the possibility of undertaking transfonterizas mergers.

The researcher Func Francisco Rodriguez has referred to these expectations of mergers and has completed the additional adjustment in offices and employees over the next four years during a meeting held last week in London with a group of international investors.

the debate in Spain on the need for more mergers, defended from the Bank Spain, has subsided before the standoff political and pending the formation of a new government, which could be extended to beyond the summer. And even some of the leading bankers of the country has postponed the consolidation process that seemed imminent for the next three or four years.

In any case, a new wave of mergers seems inevitable given the difficulty of banks to improve their margins in a context of very low interest rates. Without going any further, the Euribor twelve months reference for most mortgages in Spain, has closed the month of February in negative for the first time in history, which will result in a reduction in the spread of mortgage loans .

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This situation has led to the suggestion that banks could even pay mortgaged to borrow money, although from the banking employers has warned that it is not clear that this is legally possible.

However, some entities have begun to meet this new challenge and being included in new mortgages already called ‘clauses 0%’ to ensure that at least all the capital borrowed is returned

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