The worst is over for the banks. With the exception of Popular, who will present earnings reports on Thursday, the five biggest companies racked up 7.384 billion euros in profits. But wait just a minute. A company's annual financial outcome is like a game of basketball. We are still in the first quarter of this game, and some games are won or lost in the final minutes.
Effectively, as Bankia's José Sevilla said, after one quarter play we are ahead, but only thanks to surpluses created by selling off assets and finding out that capital provisions requirements are going to be less than expected.
The results are not bad, but they show that the banks' margins are dangerously tight since revenues keep falling because of minimal loan granting and lower interest rates.
