Spanish credit institutions operate a highly diversified retail commercial banking model, both in products and geographies, offering a complete range of financial products and services to households and businesses, with which they establish long-term relationships to meet all their financial and payment needs, safeguarding their savings and financing their investments and consumer spending.
Bank loans represent the main source of financing for Spanish businesses and households, with a volume of credit granted exceeding one trillion euros, notably including 200 billion euros directed specifically to SMEs and 500 billion euros that Spanish institutions have provided to households in mortgage loans for home acquisition, at an interest rate that competes favorably with other banking systems in the eurozone.
Bank deposits, meanwhile, constitute the financial asset in which most of the savings of households and businesses are held, totaling 1.4 trillion euros. Additionally, Spanish credit institutions are the main channel for other savings vehicles, such as investment and pension funds.
Spanish institutions play a central role in the payment system. Bank accounts are the primary and almost exclusive issuer and receiver of pensions, employee payrolls, tax payments, transfers, and direct debits for basic utilities (more than 5 billion transactions per year). Furthermore, our institutions have issued more than 90 million cards and have developed a solution for instant transfers, Bizum, a European pioneer, which now has 28 million users.
Beyond strictly financial aspects, Spanish institutions are integrated into and form part of the society in which they operate. They contribute to sustaining the welfare state through taxes and other levies (more than 9 billion euros in 2023), generate employment (160,000 workers), finance the State by purchasing its debt, channel public aid, collaborate with public administrations, and make substantial investments to place digital banking at the service of citizens.
The institutions’ commitment to society extends to their involvement in the financial inclusion of people over 65 or with disabilities, the provision of banking services in rural Spain, the promotion of financial education, and the channeling of financing with ESG objectives.
The necessary condition for the banking system to effectively and securely carry out this set of activities is, as is the case with Spanish institutions as a whole, that it be a solvent system, with capitalization levels commensurate with its risk level; resilient, as demonstrated by supervisory authorities’ stress tests; and with the capacity to generate recurring results that allow it to adequately remunerate capital and establish provisions and reserves.
The demonstrated solvency, profitability, and efficiency of Spanish institutions and their involvement in society constitute their main asset, with which they contribute significantly to citizens’ progress, economic growth, and social development.
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