MADRID, November 27 (EFECOM).- Ibercaja’s Director of Commercial Banking, Teresa Fernandez Fortun, said this Thursday that BBVA’s takeover bid for Sabadell had taken a long time and in the business sector there had been a “price war” in important financing, but she hoped it would now return to normal.
The acquisition process has taken a long time, Fernandez Fortun said during a press conference in which Ibercaja’s business banking balance was presented.
He added that both entities were fighting “their own war” and what this had led to was increased competition in the market.
According to Fernandez Fortun, in the acquisition they had an “important price war” and added that the repercussions of the acquisition were more noticeable in prices than in the opportunities to attract customers.
He pointed out that now that “the situation has calmed down,” they hope that the market will return to normal, but it is “currently distorted” in the prices at which money is loaned, although he is confident that it will “calm down little by little.”
Regarding the ICO financing lines granted to companies due to the pandemic, Cristina Matteo, Director of Business Banking at Ibercaja, noted that a high percentage of loans have been amortized, with many of them provided for three years and maturing.
He noted that in 2026, between 10 and 15% of those signed by Ibercaja will expire and the bank’s strategy, as in previous strategies that have expired, will be to contact companies and look for alternatives to renew the already unsecured loans from the ICO, for example, converting them into free credit and other formats.
Regarding the default rate of about 4% on these loans, compared to the 2.28% default rate that Ibercaja has on loans to companies, she noted that one reason is that the balance of defaults on ICO loans is divided among an increasingly smaller number of companies as they mature.
Funding for the ICO, which began in 2020, is scheduled to end in two or three years, by 2027 and 2028.