The National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) has already received the notification of the merger between CaixaBank and Bankia, which means the start of the countdown for the operation to be completed.
The regulator now has one month to assess whether the creation of the ‘superbank’ reduces competition in the market and, in this case, establish conditions to alleviate its potential impact.
This is the first major bank merger transaction to be registered with the CNMC among all those recently announced. In this sense, it will be the first major analysis that the new president of the institution has to face. Cani Fernández.
Competition will carry out its analysis amid enormous pressure due to the insistence of financial supervisors such as the ECB or the Bank of Spain on the need for integrations to strengthen the solvency and profitability of national banks .
The last one to ‘bless’ these operations yesterday was the candidate to preside over the Frob, Paula Conthe, during his presentation in the Economy Committee of the Congress of Deputies.
Meanwhile, on the other side, unions and consumer associations warn about the impact on the loss of thousands of jobs and about the prices of the greater banking concentration. Only the two ‘superbanks’ resulting from the mergers between CaixaBank-Bankia and BBVA-Sabadell would control more than half of the country’s deposits and credit.
The Competition Director, Beatriz de Guindos, will be in charge of coordinating the analysis of the processes. Once the CNMC has received official notification, the regulator has one month to analyze the integration in phase 1. When this time expires, two options are open: a final decision is made on approving or vetoing the merger, or the phase 2 for a more detailed analysis.
Experts in competition law predict that the merger of CaixaBank and Bankia will end in this second phase as it involves a detailed analysis by products or territories. This period would normally last two months, although the usual thing is that the clock will stop depending on whether the CNMC technicians have to make additional information requests.
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