Archives for August 2010
August 13th, 2010
Spanish banks and savings banks, shaken by the recent freeze they faced in the government bond repo market, are increasingly seeking membership of international trading networks and clearing houses to widen their options for raising short-term liquidity. Several large banks, including Caja Madrid and BBVA, are applying to be members of ...
Continue reading Spanish Banks in Drive to Revive Repo Financing
August 12th, 2010
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said the government plans to reverse some cuts to infrastructure spending after the country’s borrowing costs declined. “We are working to be able to ease the cuts in infrastructure,” Zapatero told a news conference on the Mediterranean island of Mallorca. The plan, which may ...
Continue reading Spanish PM Reveals Plans to Reverse Some Budget Cuts
August 11th, 2010
Spotting the frog is proving to be a little more difficult than it sounds. We know it's somewhere on the facade of the University of Salamanca, and if it's seen without the aid of someone, good luck and marriage allegedly follow. After about five minutes, we ask for help and it is ...
Continue reading Get Off the Beaten Path on Spain's Silver Route
August 10th, 2010
Part of the job of being a member of the AIPP is to help deal with consumer complaints at specially convened tribunals where the consumer and the member can each make their case. It's an enlightening process and, having attended a few of these now, I thought I'd let you know ...
Continue reading The Wisdom of Getting Independent Legal Advice
August 10th, 2010
The euro rose on Thursday, boosted by solid German industrial data and signs that Spain and Greece are making progress in trimming budget deficits. The currency also got a lift after European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet said incoming economic data for the third quarter showed stronger-than-expected euro zone growth. The ...
Continue reading ECB Heartened by Eurozone Growth
August 9th, 2010
Euribor (12 months), the interest rate predominantly used to calculate mortgage payments in Spain, has now risen for 4 consecutive months to its highest level in just under a year. Euribor reached 1.373% in July, an increase of 7% on the previous month, and just 3% below July last year. This ...
Continue reading Spanish Mortgage Base Rates Rise in July
August 6th, 2010
Thousands of British second homeowners face tough new rules from the UK Treasury as the government cracks down on holiday lets. The plan is to abolish income tax breaks for those who occasionally rent out their properties. Any future tax breaks will be designed to help tourist businesses rather than wealthy ...
Continue reading UK Holiday Homeowners Face New Tax Bomb
August 5th, 2010
Spain's ailing job market continued to show signs of improvement in July as the key tourism sector added jobs for the summer vacation season. In a release, the Spanish labor ministry said Tuesday registered jobless claims fell by 73,790, or 1.9%, to 3.9 million in July from June, marking the fourth ...
Continue reading Spanish Job Market Gets Seasonal Boost
August 4th, 2010
Spanish bonds are becoming a more attractive investment and the country will not inevitably default if Greece does, according to Invesco Perpetual. Paul Read, co-head of fixed interest at the company, called the International Monetary Fund (IMF) rescue package "absolutely necessary", buying time for governments to get their finances in better ...
Continue reading Spanish Bond Markets Attracting New Interest
August 3rd, 2010
17 months ago I submitted a petition to the Governor of the Bank of Spain with regard to the non-compliance of the various Spanish banks who were not honouring the guarantees given by them to protect deposits paid by purchasers of off-plan properties. The petition was briefly brushed aside by the ...
Continue reading Holding Spanish Banks Accountable
August 3rd, 2010
Compare and contrast. In Spain Should Tread Carefully Over Economic Recovery, regarding the recent banking stress tests, we read: By confining itself to singling out five relatively small Spanish saving and loan banks as unsound, that test gives the overall Spanish banking system a virtual clean bill of health. And ...
Continue reading Is Spanish Transparency Enough?
August 3rd, 2010
Developers are up in arms over plans to reduce subsidies for building social housing. The right to decent housing may be enshrined in the Spanish constitution, but not even the Ministry of Housing can escape the substantial budget cuts announced by government to get the deficit under control. As of next year ...
Continue reading Developers Fretting Over Ministry of Housing Subsidy Cuts
August 2nd, 2010
A basic problem in the eurozone’s periphery is that it is experiencing a commonplace emerging market-style crisis – yet its policymakers are oblivious to that fact. This recent observation, from an old hand in emerging markets at the International Monetary Fund, is perhaps nowhere truer than in Spain, where a ...
Continue reading Spain Should Tread Carefully Over Economic Recovery
