Rates don’t ease transformation pressures, says CaixaBank’s Gortázar

CaixaBank chief executive Gonzalo Gortázar is confident that rising eurozone interest rates will outweigh what he admits are growing risks to asset quality associated with stagflation and the war in Ukraine.
“I have great confidence in that,” he told Euromoney, referring at least to his own institution. “Higher rates have a major impact on our income statement. We have more than 300 billion euros in zero-cost deposits and a large part of our balance sheet is made up of floating rate loans.
It seems investors, and perhaps supervisors, are willing to share Gortázar’s belief that the outlook for Spain’s largest national bank is relatively bright. Although the European Central Bank was slow to raise its key rate, most Spanish mortgages are pegged to the 12-month Euribor, which rose nearly a full percentage point to 0.45% on the year until early June.
We need to keep evolving, not just because it can help our bottom line, but because it’s what our customers need.
Gonzalo Gortazar, CaixaBank
Coupled with its relative distance from Russia, the end of negative Euribor rates helped CaixaBank’s share price rise 20% in the year to mid-May, well outpacing the index. Stoxx600 from European banks, which fell 11% during this period.