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¡Viva Bankinter!: “UNRAVELLING" en acción

En los modelos microeconómicos con información asimétrica, cuando  la información es verificable, mentir no suele ser un equilibrio. Me explico. Si todos nos negamos a decir como de mala es nuestra cartera de créditos, por ejemplo, el mercado nos asignará el riesgo medio a todos. Pero entonces a los relativamente buenos nos conviene decir la verdad. Pero entonces los que siguen sin decir la verdad son todos considerados como bastante malos, y los mejores de entre ellos prefieren separarse del grupo y decir la verdad. Al final, en equilibrio todo se sabe .

Pues bien, Bankinter ha empezado a romper la siempre negada conspiración del silencio de los bancos y cajas españoles en el tema de los supuestos trucos contables (ver mi post al respecto y un OpEd en EL PAIS con Vicente Cuñat). De acuerdo con un excelente artículo de Charles Plenty para Bloomberg, que copio en su integridad abajo , el banco había contabilizado originalmente 982m de euros de impagados. Ahora su CEO Jaime Echegoyen ha reconocido que además de estos 982m de euros, el banco había refinanciado 380m de euros  y que además había hecho canjes de deuda por activos inmobiliarios por valor de 275m de euros. Es decir, que de acuerdo con el CEO del banco, si esto hubiera sido contabilizado en la mora, esta hubiera sido del 3.2% en vez del 2.22%.

Dos valoraciones:

-       Tiene una lógica aplastante para un banco de la primera mitad separarse del pelotón. Existe una nube que cae sobre todos los bancos y cajas si todos se empeñan en no ser transparentes. Los que están relativamente mejor se benefician de revelar la información verdadera.

-       Si esta proporción de Bankinter es la habitual an otros, la mora, que esta semana se consideraba disparada por haber subido del 2.53% del verano pasado al  4.93%  por ciento de este, estaría alrededor de un 44% más alta es decir alrededor del 7.1% por ciento. Esto ya son palabras mayores, sugiriendo que hay numerosas entidades en zona de quiebra técnica, por encima del 10%. Es de esperar que cunda la transparencia y empecemos cuanto antes la siguiente fase de la reestructuración del sistema financiero, con un uso mucho más agresivo del FROB por el banco de Espana

Mientras tanto,!VIVA BANKINTER!

Y esta es la excelente pieza de Plenty para Bloomberg:

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Bankinter Details Refinance Data, Lifts Veil on Spain Defaults
2009-10-16 13:34:52.557 GMT

By Charles Penty
Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Bankinter SA said its bad-loan ratio
would be more than 40 percent higher if refinanced loans and
real estate acquired to cancel debt were included, making it the
first Spanish bank to publicly discuss the extent of its risk.
The bank has refinanced 380 million euros ($565 million) of
loans and taken on real estate valued at 275 million euros, in
addition to the 982 million euros in bad loans on its books,
Chief Executive Officer Jaime Echegoyen said today in Madrid.
Including those transactions would push the bank’s bad-loan
ratio to 3.2 percent, not the 2.22 percent reported.
Bankinter’s disclosure may help lift the veil on the true
state of lending at Spanish banks after reported default levels
reached a 13-year high amid the country’s worst recession in 60
years, said Carlos Joaquim Peixoto, an analyst at Banco BPI SA
in Porto, Portugal. The bad-loan ratio for Spanish lenders
climbed to 4.93 percent in August from 2.53 percent a year
earlier, Spain’s central bank said today.
“If you were to extrapolate this to the rest of the
sector, it’s likely the bad-loan ratio for the others would be
much worse,” Peixoto said. “It’s good that Bankinter did this
because it shows they have nothing to hide.”
Echegoyen said that while 3.2 percent is the total
potential default ratio, there is no indication all of the
refinanced debt would have become non-performing loans.
To reach that figure “you have to assume that all these
are going to convert into NPLs, which is something that would
have to be demonstrated. If that were the case we wouldn’t have
refinanced, and I guarantee that the Bank of Spain would not
have allowed them to be refinanced.”

Non-Performing Loans ‘Understated’

Santiago Lopez, a Madrid-based analyst at Credit Suisse
Group AG, said last month that the practice of acquiring real
estate and restructuring loans may mean that Spanish banks are
understating bad loans by 30 percent. Moody’s Investors Service
said Oct. 13 that many banks may be “avoiding recognition of
the true scale” of the deterioration in assets.
“Bankinter’s numbers are, in our view, well below other
companies in Spain,” Lopez said today in a note to clients.
“But it is clear, in our opinion, that non-performing loans in
the system are understated because at least part of the
restructured loans should have been registered as NPLs.”
Bankinter, which has two-thirds of its lending in
mortgages, said today that third-quarter profit fell 4.6 percent
on higher provisions for loans in arrears and increased costs as
it sold off loans.
Net income dropped to 66.2 million euros ($98.7 million)
from 69.4 million euros a year earlier, the Madrid-based bank
said today. That was in line with the 66 million-euro median
estimate of seven analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

Crisis Not Over

Like other Spanish lenders, Bankinter faces mounting
pressure on revenue as the value of outstanding loans declines
to reflect lower interest rates, Ignacio Cerezo and Andrea
Unzueta, analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co., said in a report.
Net interest income may decline by less than 10 percent
next year as the bank’s loan book re-prices, Chief Financial
Officer Gloria Ortiz said.
During the quarter, the bank sold off 60 million euros of
mortgages that had a “high probability of foreclosure” in a
transaction that cost the bank 20 million euros, Ortiz said.
The value of loans that went into default in the quarter
fell to 87.9 million euros from 121.7 million euros a year
earlier, the bank said.
“It is too soon to say that the crisis is over,” Ortiz
said in a Webcast for analysts. “Unemployment continues to
grow, and the destruction of small and medium-sized companies
continues and this can only mean non-performing loans growing.”