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Finance

Finance

One of the key projects that European institutions wish to promote this year is the Capital Markets Union. This project takes in several initiatives, such as promoting investment in insurance company infrastructures and simplifying the brochures that companies publish in order to be financed in the capital market. However, the proposal most talked about is that of making changes to legislation in order to relaunch the high-quality securitization market in Europe.

Markets across the globe surged after Mario Draghi’s words. Yesterday, the Chairman of the European Central Bank (ECB) hinted at the possibility of stepping up the stimulus program as early as March, after holding the governing board meeting in Frankfurt. However, the ECB decided to hold back for the time being, making no significant announcements and meeting expectations.

Brazil, the biggest economy in Latin America, is facing a political and economic crisis that is keeping the country in recession and will extend over 2016. We talked about the economic situation and outlook for the country with Enestor Dos Santos, economist at BBVA Research for Brazil, who explained that if the situation is to be normalized it is important to resolve the political situation first. This will reduce uncertainty, generate more stability and enable the right decisions to be made to allow the country to grow again. However, he clarifies that recovery from this economic recession will start gradually in 2017 and gather strength after the 2018 elections.

The European Commission wants to promote one of its flagship initiatives as far as financial markets are concerned: the creation of a unified European capital market. The aim of the Capital Markets Union is to facilitate access to funding for small and medium enterprises and to remove barriers blocking cross-border investments in the EU. One of the measures that is already being worked on is the modernization of the directive regulating the contents of the prospectuses that European companies have to publish if they want to be financed in the capital market. After consulting with the public last February, the European Commission launched a proposal on the reform of this directive in November.

BBVA is the early-bird Spanish bank in the debt markets in 2016. Once again, it is the first Spanish bank to make an offering on the market in euros of 1 billion euros in 5-year senior bonds. The issue has been very favorably received. International demand exceeded 2.4 billion euros, which has enabled the bank to offer at more competitive prices than initially forecast.