Valueshore

Sir, The main reason Spanish banks have “emerged as predators - and rescuers” is that they took a sensible approach to regulation during the boom years (“Prudence pays off for big banks”, Special Report October 2).

Rather than being seen as an obligation, compliance has been viewed as providing significant benefits with respect to financial performance, operational excellence and business relationships with partners.

UK banks may never admit it, but there are useful lessons to be learnt from the Spanish banking experience. Large financial institutions in the UK should now be asking themselves how they can tap into what Forrester Research describes as Spain's "large, well-qualified IT labour pool [and] world-class vertically focused services resources" in order to benefit from Spain's knowledge.

Graham Underwood,
Managing Director, GFT UK,
London EC2, UK