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结果趋向表明,平均而言,西班牙银行业竞争激烈,包括与对等国家相比-results tend to indicate that, on average, banking competition in Spain is intense, including in comparison with that in peer countries.

51. Alongside commercial banks, savings banks have been a major force in extending services and in fostering competition. Since reforms in late 1970s, savings banks have gradually reduced their regional specificity and expanded their range of activities.
53 Many medium-sized savings banks have strengthened their national presence becoming solid competitors to commercial banks. Their market share has steadily increased from 35 percent in 1999 to 40 percent in 2007.
52. With the exception of the two largest players, the Spanish banking system remains essentially domestic (Table 3). After building up franchises in Latin America,Santander and BBVA have expanded in other markets as well. Santander is now a significant player in the U.K. (Abbey National PLC and Alliance & Leicester PLC),54 in pan-European consumer finance, and a smaller participant in the US (Sovereign Bank). BBVA has a non-negligible presence in the U.S., mainly through Compass Bankshare. Foreign activities are estimated to account for nearly half of both institutions' earnings in 2008. Other banks have small subsidiaries outside Spain, such as Banco Popular (Portugal and Florida), Caja Madrid (Mexico), and Banco de Sabadell S.A. (Mexico and Florida), while La Caixa (caja from Catalonia) has expanded internationally with acquisitions of Mexico's Grupo Financiero Inbursa and Hong-Kong based Bank of East Asia.

B.主要趋势-B. Main Trends

53. Convergence associated with EMU entry spurred a credit boom that abruptly

在2007年的中期爆发的全球金融危机结束了，金融利润收敛，都在预先和后来的EMU会员，国内燃料-ended with the outbreak of the global financial crisis in mid-2007. Interest rate convergence, both in anticipation of and since EMU membership, fueled domestic

credit growth (Figure 4). Over the period 1997-2007, credit to the non-financial private sector has increased at an average of 17 percent; about two-and-half times nominal GDP growth.

54. Credit expansion was especially pronounced in the construction and real estate market. Bank activity has gradually shifted away from interbank lending and lending to the government and the manufacturing sector, to financing construction and real estate activities (Figure 5). As of end-June 2008 exposure to real estate financing amounted to 60 percent of total credit to the nonfinancial private sector, compared to 40 percent in 1997. While savings banks have the highest exposure, commercial banks are those that most significantly reoriented their domestic activity. Increased competition for lending to real estate developers has led some institutions to take on added risks by forming joint ventures with real estate developers-banks granting loans and sometimes taking an equity stake. It is estimated that this type of lending exceeds the equivalent of 5 percent of Tier 1 capital on average, and can reach as high as 80 percent of Tier 1 in specific cases.55
53 As part of the deregulation process, savings banks were allowed to carry out universal banking activities starting in 1977.
54 Amid the U.K. banking crisis, Santander also bought the branches