As if recent merger and bidding activities for Spanish savings banks like Caja3, Unnim, Banco de Valencia, CatalunyaCaixa and maybe Novagalicia Banco was not enough, now Banca Cívica is in the middle of merger negotiations, reminding us that if anything is clear hardly a year and a half later it is that the cajas mergers have not provided satisfactory results.
Now more than ever, when tight credit obstructs any glimpse of recovery, the critical aspect of this deal and future deals is that they produce a merged bank that is solid without a doubt.
Now this being so, assembling all the pieces, after dismantling ineffective patches applied by previous governments, will require more government aid. If they can be used to clean up the financial sector and get credit flowing again, they will have been well-deployed.
