????整合不是救治西班牙銀行沉疴的萬靈丹。上周西班牙宣布新一宗銀行整合，對于恢復投資者對該國風雨飄搖的銀行業的信心，作用甚微。在形勢變得不可收拾之前，西班牙政府和歐洲央行（European Central Bank）最終需要聯手私營投資者為西班牙銀行注資并增強其實力。

????從2008年金融危機開始，圍繞西班牙一些負債累累的小銀行Caja（類似美國的儲蓄和貸款銀行）的擔憂與日俱增。與上世紀80年代美國的儲蓄和貸款銀行類似，Caja助漲了過去十年西班牙商業和住宅房地產的繁榮，信貸緊縮的啟動令這一繁榮戛然而止。

????當時執政的左翼政府認為，避免大批銀行倒閉的最好辦法是把所有Caja整合起來，希望它們憑借更大的資產負債表能更好地抵御這場金融危機。當時認為，合并產生的協同效應可用于彌補那些不良的房地產貸款造成的損失。從此次金融危機之始，西班牙銀行領域就一直在推進整合。本周宣布的是涉及Ibercaja、Liberbank和Caja3的三方合并，由此Caja數量從45家減至10家。

????但此類合并沒有讓事情朝好的反向發展，反而使狀況變得更糟。去年7月合并成立的、擁有7家Caja的銀行聯合體Bankia本月公布了巨額虧損，不得不進行部分國有化。分析師們原本估計，這家西班牙銀行合并政策的典型代表將需要30-100億歐元的救助資金。

????這些資金還遠遠不夠。上周五，Bankia宣布，公司實際上需要190億歐元，幾乎是西班牙銀行現有救助資金額的5倍。馬德里希望歐洲央行能伸出援手，向這家銀行注入新的資本金以避免其倒閉。

????歐洲央行是否真的會幫西班牙政府堵住Bankia資產負債表上的這個大窟窿，報道眾說紛紜。這種不確定性將西班牙政府的借貸成本推高到了加入歐元區以來的最高值6.6%，接近迫使希臘、葡萄牙和愛爾蘭向歐洲央行和國際貨幣基金組織（IMF）求助時的7%。這種不確定性也壓低了歐元兌美元匯率，沖擊全球股市，因為人們擔心這可能成為歐元分崩離析的導火索。

????西班牙需要在銀行危機失控前改變方向。銀行合并不能奏效的原因是，Caja的房地產貸款損失遠遠超過任何合并協同效應。鑒于不良貸款與一國失業率之間的強關聯，毫不奇怪西班牙擁有歐盟最高的失業率，已升至令人麻木的24%，年輕人失業率更是高達50%左右，兩者目前都無改善跡象。

????Consolidation is no panacea for Spain's banking woes. The announcement this week of yet another banking merger in Spain has done little to restore investor confidence in the country's shattered banking sector. The Spanish government and the European Central Bank will ultimately need to work in conjunction with private investors to recapitalize and strengthen the nation's banks before the situation turns critical.

????Since the start of the financial crisis in 2008, there has been increasing worry over Spain's debt-ridden "cajas," which are small banks, similar to savings and loans. Like S&L's did in the 1980s in the U.S., the Spanish cajas helped fueled a commercial and residential real-estate boom in Spain in the last decade, which came to a screeching halt with the start of the credit crunch.

????The ruling left-wing government at the time thought the best way to avoid lots of bank failures was to smash all the cajas together in the hopes that they could better weather the crisis with a bigger balance sheet. It was believed that merger synergies could then be used to cover any losses resulting from the sour property loans. There has since been considerable consolidation in the sector since the crisis began. The announcement this week of a three-way merger involving Ibercaja, Liberbank and Caja3 reduces the number of cajas to 10 from 45.

????But instead of making things better, the mergers have made things worse. Bankia, an agglomeration of seven cajas, which came together just last July, reported massive losses this month and had to be partially nationalized. Analysts estimated that the poster child for Spain's merger policy would need to be bailed out for 3 to 10 billion euros.

????They were way off. Bankia announced last Friday that it actually needed 19 billion euros, which is nearly five times the amount of money available in Spain's bank bailout fund. Now Madrid is hoping that the European Central Bank will come to their rescue and inject fresh capital into the bank to prevent it from failing.

????There have been conflicting reports as to whether or not the ECB will indeed help Spain's government plug the hole in Bankia's balance sheet. This uncertainty sent Spanish government borrowing costs to a euro-era high of 6.6%, which was near the 7% level that forced Greece, Portugal and Ireland to request massive government bailouts from the ECB and IMF. This weighed heavy on the euro's value versus the U.S. dollar and drove equity markets down across the globe on the fear that this could be the flashpoint that could set off the collapse of the troubled common currency.

????Spain needs to change tack before its banking crisis spins out of control. The bank mergers didn't work because the losses the cajas were registering from their property loans far outstripped any merger synergy. That shouldn't be too surprising given the strong correlation that exists between non-performing loans and a country's unemployment rate. Spain has the highest unemployment rate in the EU at a mind-numbing 24% with a youth unemployment rate that is around 50%, both of which show no signs of abating.