Little by little, banks are starting to lend. Coming off a period of time when credit was gridlocked, Bank of Spain statistics show that loans to small- and medium-size businesses have rebounded 9.41% year-to-year for over 150 billion euros in lending.
This is far from what banks were lending before the crisis began, but evidence that the economic recovery is influencing the banking sector at last. The IMF has fulfilled its role of encouraging banks to resume their traditional business as soon as possible. All in all, the IMF and banking stress tests could deliver us back, however slow, to a style of business where there is demand for solvent debt.