Spain | Household debts and savings, how are we doing?

At the dawn of a possible new crisis derived from inflationary pressures, it is worth asking how Spanish households are doing in terms of their balance sheet of financial assets and liabilities, and whether we should be concerned about rising interest rates.

Key points

• Key points:
• Spanish households began a process of deleveraging with the great financial crisis of 2008, when financial liabilities reached 965 billion euros, compared to 761 billion euros in 2021.
• On the other hand, financial assets have not stopped growing from 2008 to 2021 when they went from 1,745 billion euros (157% of GDP) to 2,683 billion euros (223% of GDP).
• As a consequence of the above, the net financial position of households is almost 2,000 billion euros (159% of GDP) and has improved by almost 2.5 times since 2008.
• At the current juncture, with inflation and interest rates rising, households are faced with contained income expectations, a considerable increase in their expenses, and an increase in the financial burden of their debts.
• If we assume a path of increases in official interest rates to 2%, the financial burden of household loans could increase by about 12.5 billion euros in interest over the next 3 years, equivalent to 1.5% of the Gross Disposable Income of households.

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