Banca March is a Spanish bank headquartered in
Palma de MallorcaPalma is the major city and port on the island of Majorca and capital city of the autonomous community of the Balearic Islands in Spain. The names Ciutat de Mallorca and Ciutat were used before the War of the Spanish Succession and are still used by people in Majorca. However, the official name...
.
The bank was founded in Palma de Mallorca by
Juan March OrdinasJuan Alberto March Ordinas , also known as Joan March i Ordinas, was a Spanish businessman closely associated with the Nationalist side in the Spanish Civil War, and with the regime of Francisco Franco after the war...
in 1926. In the beginning, its sphere of influence was limited to Majorca but it eventually grew to be the leading independent bank in the
Balearic IslandsThe Balearic Islands are an archipelago of Spain in the western Mediterranean Sea, near the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula.The four largest islands are: Majorca, Minorca, Ibiza and Formentera. The archipelago forms an autonomous community and a province of Spain with Palma as the capital...
. In 1974 it initiated an expansion onto the Spanish peninsula and in 1989 it began serious operations in the
Canary IslandsThe Canary Islands , also known as the Canaries , is a Spanish archipelago located just off the northwest coast of mainland Africa, 100 km west of the border between Morocco and the Western Sahara. The Canaries are a Spanish autonomous community and an outermost region of the European Union...
.
At the beginning of the 21st century Banca March has continued to expand its operations in the Balearic and Canary Islands, has begun operations in the tourist destinations of
AndalusiaAndalusia is the most populous and the second largest in area of the autonomous communities of Spain. The Andalusian autonomous community is officially recognised as a nationality of Spain. The territory is divided into eight provinces: Huelva, Seville, Cádiz, Córdoba, Málaga, Jaén, Granada and...
and is in the process of modernizing it offices in
MadridMadrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
,
BarcelonaBarcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
, and London.
2010 EU banking stress test exercise
On July 2010 Banca March came on top of the
European Union banking stress test exerciseA European Union-wide banking stress test exercise has been conducted by the Committee of European Banking Supervisors every year since 2009. The second instance was performed in July 2010. The third was carried out with results published in July 2011...
in terms of Tier 1 capital ratio. According to the
Financial TimesThe Financial Times is an international business newspaper. It is a morning daily newspaper published in London and printed in 24 cities around the world. Its primary rival is the Wall Street Journal, published in New York City....
:
While most scrutiny on Friday focused on the seven banks, of the 91 tested, that fell short of the 6 per cent tier one capital ratio pass mark, the exercise also shines the spotlight on the banks with the strongest capital positions.
Banca March, with a stressed tier one capital ratio of 19 per cent, is an anomaly in the Spanish financial system. Neither caja nor stock market-listed lender, March is an 84-year-old family-owned bank and equity investment group based on Mallorca.
A small branch network serves mainly wealthy clients, business families and companies looking for one-stop retail and corporate banking, asset management and financial products such as insurance and pensions. Non-performing loans account for 3.5 per cent of total assets, compared with a system average of 5.5 per cent.
As other Spanish lenders grapple with offloading multi-billion euro property portfolios acquired via foreclosures, debt-for-equity and debt-for-equity swaps, March is sitting on just €97m ($125m) of real estate. Its only exposure to sovereign debt is €105m of Spanish bonds.
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