MADRID (AFP) ― Spain is likely to seek a full bail-out to avoid default some time after mid-September, Goldman Sachs said in a report Wednesday.

The European Central Bank will not start buying troubled eurozone nations’ bonds until their governments have sought a bailout from eurozone rescue funds, with all the conditions attached, it added.

“We continue to see Spain as first in line in that respect, but do not expect a request to be made until mid-September at the earliest,” Goldman Sachs said.

Spain has already snatched a 100-billion-euro ($124-billion) lifeline from its eurozone partners to salvage the nation’s banks, buckling under record bad loans built up since a 2008 property crash.

But the nation faces big debt repayments due in October, and many investors and economists expect it to seek outside help before then, with 10-year yields on government bonds still well above six percent a year.

Spain would probably wait to see what support the ECB plans to offer before deciding whether to request further help from the eurozone’s European Financial Stability Facility, it said.

ECB chiefs are expected to outline their plans for resumed bond purchases after a council meeting on Sept. 6.

But the central bank was unlikely to announce plans to set caps on sovereign bond yields, nor to start block purchases of troubled eurozone economies’ sovereign bonds, Goldman Sachs said.

It may, however, set out a goal of preventing spikes in short-term yields in eurozone sovereign bonds, it said.

The ECB could do this by buying bonds of between one and three years “opportunistically” while giving clear guidance about where those yields should lie to reflect economic fundamentals.

“Were the ECB to pre-announce large block purchases of peripheral sovereign debt, under the current circumstances we would interpret this as implicit funding of peripheral governments,” Goldman Sachs said.

“Such an eventuality may ultimately prove necessary or inevitable: if sovereign markets were to face a funding strike the systemic consequences of a hard default would be dire,” it warned.

But the central bank for the 17 nations sharing the single currency was more likely to engage in “opportunistic” interventions than to immediately replace the private market with its own balance sheet, the banking and securities firm said.

Goldman Sachs said it also expected the ECB to provide further targeted support to banks and companies to ease financial pressures on the private sector created by the eurozone crisis.

The European central bank could relax standards for collateral provided in return for credit, for example, it said.

“But given the severity of the situation, more aggressive measures ― such as the outright purchase of bank and corporate debt ― may follow,” Goldman Sachs said.