Andalusians have more money in the bank than ever before, following 43% increase since Covid-19

Only Madrid, with 463.2 billion, and Catalonia, with 245.14 billion, are ahead of Andalucía. It ranks slightly below where it would be expected to based on population, given that it is the country's most populous region, with over 8.7 million inhabitants, ahead, therefore, of Catalonia, which has over 8.2 million, and Madrid (7.2 million).

Andalucía, however, is the region where bank savings have grown the most since the pandemic. The money Andalusians keep in banks has risen by more than 43% since the end of 2019. Only the people of the Canary Islands have seen a greater increase, with a rise of 51.5%, bringing the total to nearly 50.3 billion euros.

Behind the residents of the Canary Islands and Andalucía are the Catalans (40%), while the people of Extremadura, the Balearic Islands, Valencia, Galicia, Madrid and Castilla-La Mancha have seen their savings rise by more than 30% since the end of 2019.

Bank savings have risen in all regions. Even in those where the increase has been smallest, it is still in double figures. In La Rioja, savings have grown by nearly 13%, while in Castilla y León the increase is close to 20%.

Be that as it may, bank savings across regions as a whole have risen by 32.7%, so the increase in Andalucía exceeds that average by around 10%.

What lies behind this widespread increase in savings? In 2020 and 2021, the economic and physical lockdown placed particular constraints on spending.

However, once the Covid-19 pandemic had passed, Andalusians (and Spaniards in general) continued to increase their savings, even weathering the financial crisis.

A somewhat more negative explanation for the economy could also be that the higher volume of deposits is due to the fact that people in Malaga, especially businesses, are investing less and keeping more of their own capital.

They also prefer purely banking products, which are more conservative, to other savings tools that, although riskier, can offer higher returns.

While Andalusians' savings have grown by 43% since 2019 to nearly 184 billion euros, the volume of their loans has increased by just 8% over the same period, to 159.17 billion euros.

This means that Andalusians have more in savings than they owe. That is good for them, for businesses and for public authorities, but above all for financial institutions, which more than cover the loans they grant to their clients with the deposits they have attracted from them.

This has not always been the case. In 2019, Andalusians had 128.56 billion euros in savings, compared with the nearly 147.3 billion they owed. Since then, therefore, the amount they have in the bank has grown much faster than what they owe.

Is the situation in Andalucía very different from that in Spain as a whole? In the country, bank savings have grown by 33% since the pandemic, reaching 1.64 trillion euros, while loans have increased by a smaller margin, 5.7%, to 1.26 trillion.

Across the country as a whole, savings are also growing at a faster rate than debt. In 2019, the amount the country owed (1.19 trillion) was already less than the amount saved (1.23 trillion).

While Andalucía is the second region to have seen the greatest growth in bank savings since the pandemic, the same cannot be said for debt. In this ranking, five regions have seen a greater increase in the volume of loans than Andalucía: Galicia (up 22%, to 50.87 billion); the Canary Islands (up 15.7%, to nearly 40 billion); the Balearic Islands (up 14%, to 34 billion); and Extremadura and Madrid, with identical increases of 9.5%, but reaching 17.12 billion and 386.1 billion, respectively.

During this period, there have also been regions which, rather than increasing their debt, have been paying it back. This has been the case particularly with some small, single-province regions, such as Murcia (-13.7%, down to 16.25 billion); La Rioja (-11%, down to 6.52 billion); or Cantabria (-8%, down to 9.46 billion). Bebt has also fallen in Aragon and Valencia.

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