The grave economic crisis that accompanied the initial financing crisis, whose origin is established in the housing sector in the United States of America, and the following tensions in the European sovereign debt markets, generated important stability and solvency problems in the Spanish banking sector. This environment of profound economic and financing instability constitutes the starting point of this work, that has as its main objective, in the first place, to realize an analysis of the financing reforms adopted by the Spanish authorities since the end of 2008, the moment in which short or medium range steps were implemented to face up to the more immediate consequences of the crisis, until the end of the financing assistance program, and, in the second place, to compare the results obtained with those corresponding to other banking systems that have also received public support.

In recent years, the slow pace of economic growth, high indebtedness, and high unemployment registered in most developed economies since 2009 have revived the debate over the “secular stagnation hypothesis” first formulated by the Keynesian economist Alvin Hansen in 1938. This return of the secular stagnation hypothesis occurred in November 2013, when Lawrence Summers postulated that the global economy was facing a scenario of low growth, low inflation, and a reduction in GDP per capita due to a chronic insufficiency of aggregate demand. The causes should be sought not only in cyclical factors associated with a long financial cycle and excessive accumulated public and private debt, but also in structural changes in the central economies in recent decades, linked to the rapid slowdown in population growth and the gradual aging of the population. Finally, other factors also depress demand, such as the progressive exhaustion of the globalization process and the consolidation of new labor models. In light of these developments, this paper’s aim is twofold: first, to perform an econometric panel-data study in order to determine the influence of each of these factors in explaining secular stagnation in recent years for the selected sample of countries; and, second, to lay out proposals for reorienting the government intervention strategies adopted since the onset of the financial crisis to promote consumption and achieve sustained growth, job creation, and poverty reduction.

A crise financeira recente provocou unha importante transformación dossistemas financeiros nacionais, en especial, no que se refire ao protagonismo dalgúnsgrupos institucionais tradicionalmente importantes. É o caso do sector das caixas deaforros en España, o cal viuse afectado de forma moi significativa, e por enriba doacontecido noutros grupos institucionais, polas tempestades financeiras dos últimos anos.Coñecer os cambios que se produciron neste importante sector do noso país, tanto a nivelestrutural como de operativa e de presenza no territorio nacional, e tratar de buscar o seuparalelismo cos doutros países nos que estas entidades teñen unha maior relevancia sonos obxectivos perseguidos por este traballo.The recent financial crisis has caused an important transformation of thenational financial systems and especially in those that refer to the prominence of sometraditionally important institutional groups. This is the case of the saving banks sector inSpain which has been affected in a very significant way and because of what has occurredin other institutional groups by the financial storms in the last few years. This essay isaimed at understanding the changes that have been produced in this important sector ofour country, both in a structural level and an operational one, and at the national level,and trying to draw a parallel between those in other countries in which these entities havea major relevance.

O obxectivo prioritario deste artigo é ofrecer unha análise exhaustiva do impacto que tivo a grave crise financeira, que desde finais do ano 2008 fai estragos na economía real global, sobre o sis-tema bancario de Chipre. Para iso, e despois de estudar a súa estrutura institucional e as súas carac-terísticas máis relevantes, presentarase a situación actual e a evolución recente das súas principais magnitudes económico-financeiras, relativas ao número de entidades, volume de activos canaliza-dos, depósitos xestionados, créditos concedidos, rendibilidade, solvencia, eficiencia e, finalmente, di-versos indicadores de servizo bancario.

<p>El objetivo prioritario de esta colaboración es ofrecer un análisis del impacto que ha tenido la crisis financiera que, desde finales de 2008, hace estragos en la economía real global, sobre los sistemas crediticios de España, Alemania, Irlanda, Islandia y Estados Unidos. Se analizara su estructura institucional y características relevantes, y se abordará la situación actual y evolución reciente de sus principales magnitudes económico-financieras, relativas a número de entidades, volumen de activos canalizados, depósitos gestionados, préstamos concedidos, rentabilidad, solvencia, eficiencia y, finalmente, diversos indicadores de servicio bancario.</p>