Banco Sabadell sharpens its business strategy: 14,000 million pre-granted loans to grow in medium and large companies

Maria Hernandez Madrid

Madrid

Updated Friday, April 5, 2024-23:53

Pre-granted credits to grow in the segment of companies with between two and ten million euros in turnover. This is the backbone of

Banco Sabadell

's new strategy to gain positions in the business banking business and try to take advantage of the unblocking of credit demand that higher interest rates have been stifling in the last almost two years.

The entity has been working in recent months on a new plan that it has just launched and that begins by giving companies with annual turnover of more than two million euros access to the most specialized network of services that they already had for companies. with more than 10 million euros of turnover. With this premise, the entity puts on the table

14,000 million new pre-granted loans

that firms with that profile can resort to.

Sabadell's objective is to become the main bank for the medium and large companies with which it already works, "and for that we have to increase our share of business in them," explains

Eduardo Currás

, director of the group's Companies. Currently, the entity chaired by Josep Oliu has a 52% share of companies in the segment of companies between two and 10 million euros in turnover and, in them, its business share is 16%, that is, of the total financing to which these companies resort, 16% comes from Sabadell. The Catalan bank's goal is

to raise that percentage to 25%

in the shortest time possible. The challenge is "ambitious."

Its new financing proposal also includes providing a response to the client's request in less than seven days and maintaining the conditions at a variable rate for at least six months.

Business banking has traditionally been Banco Sabadell's

core

business and the group continues to focus on this path after a year in which credit demand has suffered significantly due to the impact of the European Central Bank (ECB) rate rise. . The sector is confident that there is pent-up demand waiting for an imminent change in monetary policy to invest again and Sabadell wanted to get ahead of the competition with this proposal to position itself for that expected recovery.

More services

At the same time, the bank has expanded the portfolio of services intended for this new network of companies, which with the lowering of the access threshold brings a total of

65,000 companies:

30,000 above 10 million euros in turnover and 35,000 above the two million euros.

In addition, Sabadell wants to strengthen the relationship models with these clients, it has reorganized the teams that will be responsible for more personalized attention and has incorporated new functionalities such as the possibility of having an expert director in each sector to accompany and advise the firms when they demand it.

"Our clients have told us that they want accessible managers and also demand more agility and operational ease," argues Currás. They will also offer advice on cybersecurity or a debtor portfolio valuation service and collection insurance.

The new strategy has forced us to restructure the organizational part of the teams in Sabadell, so that the 200 specialists who worked with the largest companies join the 300 specialized in companies worth around two million euros, creating a team of 500 specialists and 63 work teams.

Since the plan came into effect, the bank detects a

conversion percentage of 5%

in pre-authorized credit and a growth of 2% compared to the January investment.