Spanish Banks’ Bad Loans Ratio Climbs to Record 12.1%

Spanish defaults as a proportion of total lending climbed to a record in August as companies and consumers struggled to make loan payments in an economy with an unemployment rate that’s still above 26 percent.

Non-performing loans accounted for 12.1 percent of lending in August, compared with 12 percent in July and 10.5 percent in the same month a year earlier, the Bank of Spain said on its website today. The stock of bad loans rose to 180.7 billion euros ($247.2 billion) during the month as 2 billion euros of lending turned sour.