The popular mandate

摘要

EVEN a bank failure can be presented as a triumph. This week Banco Popular, a big Spanish lender, endured a run. Depositors were said to be withdrawing €2bn ($2.2bn) a day. The bank lost half its stock-market value in four days, as a self-imposed deadline to find a saviour loomed. On June 6th, it was declared by the Single Resolution Board (srb), an independent agency of the European Central Bank formed in 2015 and charged with winding down banks, to be "failing or likely to fail". The next morning, Santander, Spain's biggest bank, announced its purchase for the symbolic sum of €1 ($1.10). It is to raise €7bn in capital to help absorb Popular's property-related losses.