The telecoms sector has an especially weak ratings profile, with four out of five parent-level issuers rated speculative grade, though defaults have not occurred on the scale they did in past recessions.
The data corresponds to proprietary bank-level information from a sample of 45 Spanish banks and contains quarterly bank-level (acquirer and issuer) information on payment cards, ATMs and POS terminals as well as prices for debit card transactions (interchange fees, merchant fees and annual fees).
Last summer a spate of failures kicked the default rate for U.S. speculative-grade (i.e., junk) bond issuers up to its highest level since the 1991 recession.
A survey by Standard & Poor's, a credit-rating agency, also shows that the number of issuers in default dropped to 37, the lowest level since 1982.
"The marketplaces and the level of competition and number of issuers in some rural areas, regardless of who is president, is going to be something that rises up pretty high on their radar," said John Graves, an assistant professor at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.
I want somebody to make a market in an issuer's stock not matter what the volatility levels are, no matter how hot the kitchen gets, we think that's very, very important.
As we are analyzing the effects of ATM and POS transaction volumes at the regional level, we do not distinguish between the issuer and the acquirer sides as we are focusing on the aggregate effect.
A total of 92 issuers raised just $12.2 billion in public offerings, the lowest level since 2003.
Instead, the ratings agency updated its older model in a way that didn't increase the level of loss coverage that Wall Street issuers were required to include in their subprime deals.
Globally bond issuers floated paper worth $2 trillion in 2004, double the level since Diamond arrived.
