WHY it's
scary:
Here’s
the fear: Banco Santander, BBVA and the third largest bank in Spain, La
Caixa, have combined assets of about $2.7 trillion. Spain’s GDP is just
about $1.4 trillion.
In other words: Spain’s three biggest banks are nearly twice as big as the entire Spanish economy.
By
contrast, America’s three largest banks by assets — JPMorgan Chase,
Bank of America and Citigroup — have combined assets of around $6
trillion, or about 40 percent of U.S. GDP. If JPMorgan , Bank of
America and Citi are too big and too systemically important to fail,
what does that make Spain’s big three?