Nonstandard monetary policies and bank profitability: The case of Spain

The aim of this study is to examine the effects of nonstandard monetary policy measures implemented by the Eurosystem on the Spanish banking sector profitability. To do this, a new database is built merging data from the Spanish Banking Industry Statistical Yearbook and from the Spanish Stock Market Commission. Applying different econometric techniques to a panel of 54 Spanish banks that covers the period 2001–2017 and controlling for bank‐specific factors and macroeconomic conditions, no discernible impact is found between the Eurosystem's nonstandard monetary policy measures (ECB's total assets, excess reserves and the slope of the yield curve) and bank profitability measured as return on assets, pre‐tax operating income and interest margins. This result is robust to different specifications and to different groups of banks.