CaixaBank has been named the ‘Best Bank in Spain’ for the third consecutive year and ‘Western Europe’s Best Digital Bank 2023’ at the Awards for Excellence that British magazine Euromoney presents every year to the leading banking services companies in the world.
This is the eighth time in the past 12 years that CaixaBank has received the top national award, and the second time the bank has been recognised for its digital transformation at these international awards.
The jury for the prizes, consisting of the magazine's editorial board, selected CaixaBank for its leadership in banking services in Spain, reinforced after the merger with Bankia, and for its determined commitment to innovation, which has made it a pioneer in the use of new technologies to offer the best service to customers, in keeping with its brand proposition to "Standing by people for all the things that matter".
For the chairman of CaixaBank, José Ignacio Goirigolzarri, “these awards recognise CaixaBank's unique banking model, one based on engaging with and supporting families and companies, as well as the society that we serve. The fact that Euromoney has named CaixaBank as the ‘Best Bank in Spain’ for three years running confirms our sustainable banking model, which places CaixaBank in a relevant position to lead the transformation process of the European banking sector".
For his part, Gonzalo Gortázar, CaixaBank's chief executive officer, underscored that “these awards recognise the effort and good work of all our employees, as well as our commitment to innovation and digital transformation. In an environment where technological changes are pressing ahead, the leading banks have to be able to give fast and efficient answers to society's new needs. The recognition as ‘Western Europe’s Best Digital Bank 2023’ encourages us to keep developing our service model to adapt it to the preferences of our customers and society in general, which is one of the pillars of our 2022-2024 Strategic Plan".
Award Best Bank in Spain 2023
CaixaBank had a very positive 2022 in terms of commercial growth, credit rating and financial strength. In FY 2022, the company boosted its activity in all the service channels through which it engages in its activity (from the largest branch network in Spain to remote or digital service channels, such as inTouch, CaixaBankNow and imagin), and thanks to a wide range of products and services designed to address the needs of each type of customer.
This commitment to serve the customer, together with a unique omni-channel distribution platform with multi-product capacity, allowed the entity to enhance its leadership position in Spain with solid market shares: 24% in loans to homes and companies, 24.5% in investment funds, 34% in pension plans, 29.7% in long-term savings and 30.7% in card invoicing.
CaixaBank closed out FY 2022 with high levels of liquidity and solvency, a reflection of the strength of the Group's balance sheet. The liquid assets totalled 139,010 million euros at the close of the financial year. In addition, the Group's Liquidity Coverage Ratio (LCR) on 31 December 2022 was 194%, which reflects its comfortable liquidity position.
This positive trend in CaixaBank's results and its financial strength allowed the company to continue supporting families, companies and society at large, with the ultimate goal of being close to people. CaixaBank is firmly dedicated to improving society, as reflected in its commitment to financial inclusion, its support for the most vulnerable groups, training and promoting entrepreneurship, among other aspects.
To give one example, CaixaBank operates the largest microcredit bank in Europe. Since its founding in 2007, MicroBank, CaixaBank's social bank, has mobilised over 8,700 million euros in almost 1.3 million projects with a social impact. Of this amount, more than 7.9 billion has been for micro-loans, with a special emphasis on those intended to meet specific needs of families, and loans given to start up or consolidate businesses set up by entrepreneurs and micro-enterprises.
CaixaBank also remains strongly committed to providing access to housing and has more than 11,200 homes in its social rental programme, and it has contributed more than half of all the homes that the sector has ceded to the Social Housing Fund.
It is also strongly invested in the territory and has the most extensive network of branches in Spain, with a presence in all provinces. It is the only bank to have a branch in 482 towns and has pledged not to abandon any of them. It also has a network of 17 mobile branches operating in 626 municipalities in six regions of Spain.
Award Western Europe’s Best Digital Bank 2023
Technology and innovation are crucial for CaixaBank. With more than 11 million users of its digital banking service —the largest customer base in the Spanish financial sector— the bank works daily towards developing new models that are able to meet the requirements and needs of its customers, bringing closer its products, services, and financial culture to all citizens.
Through its digitisation process, the bank, which has its own technology subsidiary, CaixaBank Tech, and multidisciplinary teams that take innovation to every corner of the organisation, promotes projects based on new technologies like cloud computing, artificial intelligence, app development, big data, and more. These technologies provide advisers with further and better resources to guide their customers and drive the customisation of the commercial offer, with the aim of improving customer linkage, developing new financial services and streamlining the decision-making process.
The main projects in the 2022-23 financial year in this field include the latest initiatives of imagin and Banco BPI in the metaverse, the alliance with Google Cloud to boost innovation in data analysis and expand its capabilities in cloud computing and artificial intelligence, and the creation of the Insights Centre, CaixaBank's technology research and development hub.
