Spain banks bad loans rise to 14-year high in Feb - Reuters, 19/04/2010

MADRID, April 19 (Reuters) - Spanish banks' bad loans rose by nearly 2 billion euros ($2.80 billion) to a fourteen-year high in February as crisis-hit borrowers struggled to service debts, data from the Bank of Spain showed on Monday.
 
Non-performing loans (NPL) rose to 5.3 percent of total non- credit card debt at Spains' banks and financial institutions in February, from 5.2 percent in January, while total lending increased slightly to 1.76 trillion euros.
 
NPLs were the highest among Spain's regionally-focused savings banks -- most exposed to the country's ongoing property crisis -- where bad debt rose to 5.43 percent of total non- credit card lending in February from 5.34 percent in January. ($1=.7153 Euro) (Reporting by Robert Hetz; writing by Nigel Davies and Jonathan Gleave; Editing by Jon Loades-Carter)