The following video is part of our "Motley Fool Conversations" series, in which senior analyst Anand Chokkavelu, CFA, discusses topics around the investing world.
Here's a scary number: 8.7%. What is it? It's bad loan percentage for Spanish banks per the Bank of Spain (as of April).
To put that in perspective, Synovus, a U.S. bank I've warned against for its poor lending standards never hit that mark during the financial crisis. Looking at current numbers, Synovus stands at 4.3%. Going to larger U.S. banks with histories of bad lending standards, Citigroup is at 1.8% and Bank of America 3.0%.
Looking at individual big Spanish banks, the bad debt picture is better than 8.7%, but still scary: BBVA is at 4.4% and Banco Santader is at 4.3%.
Check out the following video for Anand's thoughts.
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