UK and Spanish banks performances before, during and after the financial crisis: consumer behavior and attitudes to personal risk

Abstract

This paper analyzes and compares the UK and Spanish banks performances before, during and after the financial crisis with a focus on the trend of ATMs, payment cards and accepted devices, ROA and ROE. The study results indicate that UK consumers use their bank cards more often than the Spanish consumers even after the financial crisis. Besides, UK banks´ consumers still preferred to use their debit cards at the Point of Sale. In contrast, Spanish consumers will rather use their credit and/or debit delayed cards. The number of ATM withdrawals and the average value of an ATM withdrawal that indicate the use of ATMs have been most negatively affected by the financial crisis in Spain than in the UK. Moreover, while Spanish banks were still profit making, UK banks were wiping a huge loss on ROA and ROE at the peak of the crisis. Nevertheless, all the way through the 5 year period UK banks almost appear to be back to full health, whereas Spanish banks have gradually started experiencing the intense reverberations of the financial crisis. Indeed, the output results of this study increases banks stakeholders’ knowledge by providing insight into some determinants of payment instrument use by either consumers or business that are somehow linked to the bank's financial operational decisions as well as the stability and sustainability of the cross-countries banks performances.