In June the evaluation exercise was completed, enabling an estimate of the capital needs for the whole system to be made, and confirming that they were clearly below € billion; at the end of August the Royal Decree-Law on credit institution restructuring and resolution was approved, constituting a new code in this area; at the end of September the exercise was completed, enabling the capital needs for each of the banks participating in the exercise, which accounted for 90% of the Spanish banking system, to be determined; and, last Thursday, the Decree which will regulate the activity of the Asset Management Company for Assets Arising from Bank Restructuring (SAREB) was approved, another key step in the implementation of the programme agreed with the European Commission. The analysis concluded in September enabled the classification of banks for restructuring purposes to be confirmed. Previously, the banks without additional capital needs had already been determined (Group 0) as had the banks controlled by the FROB (Group 1), to use the terminology of the Memorandum of Understanding; this classification was completed, dividing the other banks with capital needs into: a) those with plans to achieve the capital levels required using their own means; and b) those which will require State aid to do so. The latter were requested to provide restructuring plans which are currently being studied.
The correction of imbalances will be essential for regaining market confidence. And here, both budget policy and further structural reforms will be a pivotal contributing factor. The year 2013 poses considerable challenges and difficulties. If we manage to overcome them, they will put us on the path of economic growth and job creation. BIS central bankers’ speeches  5