IMF suggests Spain get ‘outsider’ banks audit

The International Monetary Fund on Friday recommended that Spain take a page from Ireland and use an independent auditor to evaluate its banks, saying that could boost confidence.

Antonio Borges, the director of the IMF’s European department, said that Spain needed to make a “stronger effort” to make its struggling economy more export-oriented and further reform its banking system, where confidence has been shaken amid the eurozone public debt crisis.

“The Spanish might consider to have an outsider provide an evaluation of bank assets as was done in Ireland, for example, to great success, just to restore confidence so there is no more uncertainty about the situation,” he said.

“There are a few things that need to be done, but in general Spain is moving rapidly in the right direction,” he said at a news conference during the IMF-World Bank annual Washington meetings.