Buying Treasury bills is the most exciting thing that can be done on a weekday in Madrid at 7 in the morning. For more than a week, dozens of people, mostly retirees, have been queuing at the Bank of Spain to get one of the 120 shifts that the institution distributes to acquire public debt. The days of the phenomenon are numbered because this Tuesday a prior appointment system will be launched, but in the last few hours it has been taking on the forms of an event. On Friday, the television cameras, the microphones and the curiosity of the passers-by gave color to the scene and put the most modest investors in trouble.
“I am conservative. I don't want risks and neither deposits nor banks offer me what Treasury bills do,” says Juan, who, like many other buyers, prefers not to give his full name. He is retired and expresses himself with knowledge of the facts, convinced that this product "is the best way to obtain returns with inflation." As he says, he has already invested 250,000 euros in Treasury bills and is in line with the intention of using another 50,000 euros in one-year titles.
The profitability of the letters is already around 3%, so that Juan's early start will have a reward close to 1,500 euros, from which he must subtract, as with any capital gain, 21% taxes, in addition to the commission " symbolic” of the Bank of Spain, “much lower than the 0.35% that banks charge” for buying bills in open auctions, he explains. "I have no problem getting up early," he concludes with his folder under his arm.
The liveliest part of the queue is made up of a group made up of Alicia, a retiree, and other contemporaries who decide to identify themselves to La Vanguardia as the “Group waiting for Treasury bills”. This spontaneous faction of public debt activists has decided that it is a good morning to show young people what is good: "We do not want to risk the sweat of a lifetime." "They don't score any more goals for us." "This is good, and not bitcoins." "I bought the last Treasury bills in pesetas."
There is no lack of a review of the recent history of the great economic accidents in Spain. "Those of us who are old can teach young people a lot," says one, and the group begins to remember the preferred ones, the philatelic stamps, the savings banks and even the housing cooperatives among wise calls for distrust: "nobody gives hard two pesetas”.
There are also evocations to those times in which letters rented at 12%. "Yes, but the mortgages were at 14%," says another. In conclusion: investing in public debt never fails.
The fever for Treasury bills is easily explained. Households have saved, according to calculations by the Bank of Spain, more than one trillion euros and now, with the ECB rate hikes, they are beginning to look for a return that banks do not offer. What better product than these hitherto infallible titles, which are bought in blocks of 1,000 euros with a maturity of three, six or twelve months.
Everyone in the queue agrees that the banks have nothing comparable to bills. The average remuneration of bank deposits is barely 0.7% and both the president of Santander, Ana Botín, and the CEO of BBVA, Onur Genç, indicated this week that for the moment there are no signs of offering attractive returns. Banks are reluctant to reward savings because they continue to have ample liquidity.
The Secretary General of the Treasury, Carlos Cuerpo, recently encouraged individuals to buy government debt because it is "safe and profitable." The objective this year is to place 70,000 million euros in new issues and the Government has decided to concentrate more than two thirds of the effort in the first part of the year.
Getting up early is definitely justified, even if the morning record holders refuse to celebrate it. The first two people in line on Calle Alcalá are the most sought after for the cameras, who are dismissed with a grunt. They look to the sides and do not carry folders, as if they were saving someone's place. One of them hides behind a cap and a mask, and she agrees to answer questions in monosyllables, but it is impossible to extract from her even the time at which she has arrived. They give a clandestine air to the scene, in which dozens of investors patiently offer a crash course in early-morning finances to sleep peacefully.
