MADRID, May 18 (Reuters) - Spanish bad debt rose at the slowest rate in 15 months in March as savings banks reined in lending and cut defaults, Bank of Spain data showed on Monday in the latest sign the country's recession may be finding a floor.
The volume of bad debt rose by 769 million euros ($1.04 billion) in March, the least since December 2007 and a fraction of monthly increases of up to 9 billion euros in the first months of 2009.
The ratio of bad loans to total outstanding debt for banks and financing co-operatives, excluding retail credit cards, rose to 4.17 percent in March, up from 4.14 percent the previous month.
Bad loans for all lending institutions in Spain, including credit cards from retail outlets which don't hold deposit accounts, rose to 4.27 percent, the highest level since December 1996 and up from 4.18 percent in February.
March's rise was well below past monthly increases of up to half a percentage point that caused the rate to quadruple in the 12 months to February.
The bad loans data mirrored recent indicators ranging from consumer confidence to house sales that fell at slower rates in past months.
Other activities such as industrial production, air traffic and energy demand are still declining at record rates.
The European Commission expects Spain to be the last country in the European Union to exit recession, probably in 2011, as it suffers the twin blows of the global economic crisis and the collapse of a decade-long housing boom.
The slowdown in Spanish debt defaults is being driven by savings banks, which have the highest exposure to the country's troubled property market.
Banking leaders say government aid for unemployed mortgage holders facing default has also tempered the rise in bad loans.
For the fourth month running, the savings banks cut total outstanding credit as they put restrictions on who they would lend to after unemployed swelled to 17.4 percent or over 4 million in march.
In doing so, the savings banks managed to cut their level of bad debt by 645 million euros or 0.06 of a percentage point to 4.78 percent in March.
In Spain's other banks, bad debts rose by 1.25 billion euros in March to a default rate of 3.58 percent from 3.45 percent in February, the Bank of Spain reported.
(Reporting by Robert Hetz and Andrew Hay; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)