CaixaBank, Spain’s leading retail bank chaired by Jordi Gual and whose CEO is Gonzalo Gortázar, has received the “Excellence in Leadership in Western Europe 2020" award from British magazine Euromoney, consolidating itself as a leading bank in the continent for its commitment towards people and society as a whole in its response to the COVID-19 crisis.
The newly created Excellence in Leadership awards acknowledge the world’s leading banks that have shown their commitment towards being part of the global solution against the pandemic with measures and aids aimed at driving the economic and social recovery.
CaixaBank has rolled out an extensive package of measures since the onset of the crisis in a bid to cushion the economic impact of coronavirus and support the needs of businesses and individual customers, as well as the most disadvantaged sectors of society. Since the beginning of the crisis, CaixaBank has advanced payments of pensions and benefits to over 3.2 million customers, processed more than 350,000 mortgage and credit moratoriums and has increased its credit portfolio by 5.8% in the first five months of the year, a rise not registered since the period of January-December 2008.
Jordi Gual, the bank’s chairman, has emphasised the importance of the banking sector as part of the solution to the global economic and health crisis: “In moments like these, the financial sector plays a crucial role in alleviating the economic and social effects of the pandemic. In this scenario, our socially responsible banking model acquires its full meaning, and therefore, it has rolled out several measures focused on different groups with the aim of continuing to play a crucial role in achieving recovery in the fastest way possible.” The chairman of CaixaBank also reminded us that “the bank, through its Social Action programme and in collaboration with the “la Caixa” Foundation, has intensified its actions supporting vulnerable groups by means of its voluntary work and aid for Food Banks and soup kitchens, among many other initiatives.”
Furthermore, Gonzalo Gortázar, CaixaBank's CEO, has valued this award as a recognition of the efforts made by the whole bank to continue supporting its customers, shareholders and society as a whole at all times. “This award is a nod to our 35,000 employees for their commitment to supporting society and offering an essential and exemplary service in such a serious crisis as the one caused by COVID-19”, he emphasised. “Our response capacity has allowed us to guarantee financing to businesses and individual customers and support the most disadvantaged sectors in society when they most needed it, thanks to our solvency levels, extremely low non-performing loan ratio and a liquidity position of over 100,000 million euros.” Gortázar concluded, “At the height of the pandemic, CaixaBank has maintained 90% of its branch network open, the largest network of ATMs in the country operative and the most innovative products and services available via our online and mobile banking.”
CaixaBank's support measures to reactivate the economy
CaixaBank, through its #WithYouMoreThanEver campaign, has deployed measures targeting individual customers and society as a whole to reactivate the economy, among which are particularly noteworthy:
- The bank has kept available to its customers the largest ATM network in Spain, with more than 9,000 terminals, and has kept more than 90% of its branch network open, with over 4,000. In addition, the bank has been operating in 97% of more than 2,000 cities, towns and villages
- CaixaBank has improved the CaixaBankNow online banking service, available in web format or through the mobile application, which allows customers to carry out practically all their banking without having to visit a branch
- The bank has registered an increase in its credit portfolio of 5.8% in the first five months of the year and has issued a COVID-19 Social Bond for €1,000 million to fund SMEs and micro-enterprises in Spain's most disadvantaged areas
- CaixaBank has advanced payments of pensions and unemployment benefits to 3.2 million customers and has deployed a priority support plan for elderly people at its branches
- The bank has extended the duration of the legal moratoriums on the payment of mortgages and personal loans and credits, and it has broadened them beyond the vulnerable groups established in the legal moratorium. Since the beginning of the crisis, CaixaBank has processed over 350,000 mortgage and consumer credit moratorium requests
- During the state of alert, CaixaBank cancelled the rents of tenants in buildings owned by its subsidiary BuildingCenter
- VidaCaixa and SegurCaixa Adeslas have channelled more than €8.5 million into a new solidarity fund to insure health care workers (700,000 people) at no cost to them
- The bank has launched, together with the "la Caixa" Foundation, the “No home without food” solidarity campaign as an exceptional response to the social emergency resulting from the current social and health crisis, raising €3.3 million
All of this has been possible thanks to CaixaBank's leadership in retail banking in Spain, where it is the main bank for one out of every four customers. The bank's market share in the country for the individuals segment is 27.8%, with solid market shares across the main products and services. CaixaBank is the leader in digital banking, with 7 million digital customers, thanks to its firm commitment to pursuing digital transformation and new technologies with the aim of offering the best customer service anywhere and through any channel.
International acknowledgement of CaixaBank
These awards follow on from an intense year of acknowledgement of CaixaBank. In 2020, Global Finance has awarded the entity with the “Best Bank in Spain” award for the sixth consecutive year and “Best Bank in Western Europe” for the second consecutive time. In addition, at the end of 2019 the magazines The Banker and PWM (Financial Times Group) named CaixaBank “Best Private Bank in Spain 2019”.
In the field of innovation and digitalisation, CaixaBank has been selected as “Best Private Bank in Europe for its digital culture and vision 2020” by the magazine PWM, and the US magazine Global Finance highlighted three of the Bank's projects in its The Innovators Awards 2020 for the use of biometrics in banking services, its new on-boarding digital platform and the continuous improvement of its CaixaBankNow application chatbot.
About Euromoney
Euromoney magazine is an economic-financial publication based in London, which is highly influential in capital markets. With 50 years of history, it is globally recognised as a specialised journal for international banking and financial news.
