CaixaBank launches a programme of charity micro-donations linked with customer use of cards

New corporate responsibility initiative aimed at getting customers involved in projects spearheaded by "la Caixa" Welfare Projects

• Users will now be able to make small-sum donations to help fund charity projects each time they use their cards to make purchases or at cash machines.

CaixaBank has launched a new initiative aimed at getting its customers involved in the bank's corporate social responsibility activities and the social action spearheaded by CaixaBank Welfare Projects. This project consists of allowing customers to make micro-donations to charities every time they perform some of the most frequent card transactions, such as making payments, withdrawing cash at ATMs or topping up prepaid cards.

Users can fully personalise their charity micro-donations at all times. Thus, customers can choose how much they want to donate each time they use their card, starting from as little as one euro cent. They can also choose which card transactions will be associated with donations and what causes they want their funds to support. Likewise, customers can change the donation amount at any time, choose to support different projects, temporarily suspend donations or even choose to make one-off micro-donations only, rather than associate their contributions with card transactions.

Users can configure their preferences via Línea Abierta, the CaixaBank online banking channel, using a quick process with full security guarantees.

This is the first time that a Spanish bank has launched a corporate social responsibility programme associated with electronic banking.

Full and ongoing project information

The system is designed to ensure that full information on micro-donations and the projects that are supported is available to customers at all times. Each month customers can view their total contributions based on their donation format and the total number of credit card transactions.

The donation is transferred from the user's account on a monthly basis after the total for micro-donations from card activity is calculated, and never as an additional charge on top of individual operations. To ensure greater user control, customers can establish a monthly limit on their donations.

The full amount of all micro-donations will be sent directly to the selected projects and will not be subject to any kind of structural costs. The CaixaBank online banking channel features full reports on each project and how much has been donated to the same, thus ensuring full coverage of all projects. When a specific action has been completed successfully micro-donations will no longer be accepted for the same, although the information on the project will remain available.

At present the micro-donations are being channelled towards charity projects that support children in poverty and international cooperation.

CaixaBank projects that seek to involve customers in CSR action

For CaixaBank, the main aim of the micro-donations project is to get customers involved in its social action and to raise as many contributions as it can, even if the donations are very small. Given that CaixaBank is Spain's leading bank, with more than 13 million customers and over 12.5 million cards in circulation, there is real potential to support charity projects via a high volume of small donations.

The micro-donations project now joins other CSR initiatives that promote customer involvement, such as the option to exchange CaixaBank loyalty programme points (Puntos Estrella) for financial donations to charity projects or for fair-trade products. In 2012 customers made total Puntos Estrella charity donations worth 1,037,718 euro, up 66.2% against 2011.

Involvement of customers in CaixaBank Welfare Projects comes as part of a policy to extend CSR action to a range of CaixaBank Group stakeholders, including employees, suppliers, shareholders and the general public.