To facilitate a better understanding of the factors underpinning the Spanish banking system’s low profitability levels compared with the pre-crisis levels, I will now concentrate on business in Spain. This is because changes in profitability in the consolidated statements are influenced by the growing share of international exposure observed in recent years and this makes it more difficult to interpret earnings as they are affected by significant changes in composition. Also, there are only a small number of banks that have significant international exposure, which means that changes drawing on consolidated statements may not be very representative of the majority of the banking sector. The profitability data drawing on individual statements of business in Spain are also highly cyclical, even more so than those drawing on consolidated statements. This reflects the greater severity of the crisis in Spain compared with the situation in other economies to  8/13  which Spanish banks held exposures. There are also signs of a marked recovery in recent years, despite which, in 2018 both ROE and ROA were still below their pre-crisis levels. The breakdown of the return on assets shows that the main determinant of the current low level of profitability of business in Spain compared with the pre-crisis period is a narrowing of net interest income in terms of assets, or net interest margin. This narrowing was concentrated in the period 2009 to 2013, when the margin fell from 1.4% to 0.9%; since then this indicator has steadied at around 1% of total assets.
All households who have previously paid more than SEK 4,500 a year in property tax will have lower monthly costs, according to this proposal. If households choose to use the sum they save on the abolished tax to take out larger loans, it is possible that this will lead to a slightly faster increase in prices than would otherwise have been the case. If the increased opportunities to borrow were to have a full impact on house prices, the reform could push up prices by around five per cent. The price increases would probably be highest in the parts of Sweden with the higher taxation values, where they have previously paid a relatively higher tax rate. However, there are a number of factors that imply that this calculation probably overestimates the effect on prices. Firstly, the Government has been indicating for some time that it intended to lower property tax. It is therefore possible that house prices have already been affected to some extent by the decision. Secondly, the price increases could be counteracted by the higher capital gains tax. Thirdly, if households believe that the property tax will in some way be increased in the future, it is not certain that they will be prepared to increase their borrowing. As I said, it is not easy to measure the overall effects of the changed taxes. This is a subject which I believe we will have reason to discuss further in the future.