##ability in the spanish banking sector. i should further point out that net interest income as a percentage of total assets in spanish banking business has not changed much over the past four or five years, with a ratio of around 1. 25 %. true, there is more pressure on marginal rates, but their impact on average margins is fairly slow. the marginal cost of funding has risen, but the average cost in 2010 was lower than that observed in the five previous years. sometimes there is confusion between new rates and average rates. as regards funding, our banks have a relatively reasonable wholesale funding maturity structure, with nearly half of the maturities after 2013. around 20 % of the debt issued on markets matures this year. the recent measures to reinforce solvency should, along with headway in restructuring, allow our banks to re - fund when the foregoing maturities fall due without excessive strains, although probably at still - high costs. evidently, there was a bout of tension last year in the funding of spanish banks when the wholesale markets practically shut down following the greek sovereign debt crises. spanish banks – inevitably – resorted to a greater extent to the ecb. once the tensions began to evaporate, spanish banks immediately returned to the wholesale market to place covered bonds, senior debt and guaranteed debt. this response by spanish banks is very positive and shows their willingness to cut to the full the resort to the ecb. indeed, our ecb funding levels are currently slightly below our relative weight in the euro area. bis central bankers ’ speeches i have so far talked about those areas where we have risks and concerns. i would not wish to wrap up without mentioning an area where we do not have problems. this is, namely, banks ’ and savings banks ’ exposure to households via mortgage loans for house purchases. other countries have serious problems with their mortgages, but in spain the doubtful assets ratios ended 2010 at levels below 3 % in this lending portfolio segment, which accounts for more than one - third of the total portfolio. elsewhere, in credit to construction and real estate developers, bad debts are around five times greater. these mortgage default figures are somewhat more than one percentage point lower than those observed in the early 1990s, when we also had a recession combined with a real estate market crisis. and this is possible with the unemployment rate currently around 20 %. the explanation for this is that interest rates on spanish mortgages are currently below 3 %, while in the early 1990s they were around 14 %,

. those interested in this viewpoint should read the latest speech by fernando restoy, the vice - chairman of the cnmv ( spanish national securities market commission ). in it he suggests certain areas in which the regulation of these markets could be improved. i ’ m going to adopt a less ambitious approach, focusing on describing market behaviour from the standpoint of a country such as ours, which in recent months has had to tackle a lack of investor confidence. what have we learned from the behaviour of the debt markets in this second phase of the crisis? perhaps one of the key lessons is that markets are capable of identifying certain structural problems which, for whatever reason, may affect an economy ’ s solvency. and this is why markets can offer us economic policy pointers, of interest not only to them but also to us. restoring health to public finances, reforms to boost growth and reduce unemployment, the restructuring of our banking systems so they are positioned to promote growth when credit demand picks up, etc. are all pieces of advice of benefit to us and which are worth following. admittedly, some may say, markets issue warnings. but they usually do so belatedly. and this is true. turning to spain ’ s case, there was a more than 10 - year - long boom during which credit hit double - digit growth rates and the current account, which was practically in balance in 1996, began to run a systematically and continuously widening deficit. over this period the markets were not exactly profuse in giving signals about the imbalances that were building up. the markets, like spaniards, thought the spanish economy was doing fine. we should acknowledge, as raghuram rajan does when talking about the us economy, that this delay in realising the actual problems was shared by all agents in the economy. but that does not mean that, although they are late, the messages from markets do not merit being heard and given due assessment. if we think that investors ’ evaluation of problems is reasonable, then the most recommendable response is to follow their advice. we ’ ve also learned that the markets may not only err when they are late offering their advice, but that their judgments may also be mistaken. frequently, their information is diffuse or insufficient, and investors ’ view of different economies is shaped in an overly simplistic fashion. what we ’ ve seen, when this is the case, is that criticising their ignorance is of little use in practical terms. the proper response is to provide