The closure of bank offices in Spain leaves more towns every year without access to a branch. During 2021 there was 113 municipalities that saw their last office disappear and there are already close to 4,500 that are deserted from branches. This means that in more than half of the territory (55% of the municipalities) it is not possible to access financial services in person, according to data provided by the Bank of Spain.
The massive closure that has occurred in recent years motivated by the network restructuring due to mergers between entities, cost savings and the progressive digitization of the business has made it difficult in some provinces to find an office to carry out basic procedures such as withdrawing cash or checking bank account movements.
Although in relative terms the percentage of people in Spain who do not have access to a branch is low (around 3.5%), it is in the towns without branches that a population group is found that precisely needs a branch: areas rural where most of the people belong to the elderly group, with difficult access to online banking and attached to cash.
In this withdrawal of the branch network there is a imbalance in terms of geographical areas. The provinces of the northern half of the peninsula and those of the Mediterranean have been the hardest hit, while in the southern half, the islands and Galicia, the branch network is more populated.
The The autonomous community that has suffered the most from the closure of branches is Castilla y León, since in most of the territory there is no branch. In fact, the nine Castilian-Leonese provinces are located in the top ten with the highest percentage of municipalities without a bank branch.
Salamanca It is the province with the highest rate of municipalities without a branch (87.7% of the municipalities do not have an office). On Palencia (87.4%) and Avila (86.7%) the level is similar. Above 85% are also found Guadalajara (85.8%) and Zamora (85.1%). What’s more, Burgos (84.4%), Valladolid (83.1%), Soria (83.1%), Segovia (81.3%) and Lion they complete the top 10 positions of provinces with more deserted municipalities of bank offices.
Similarly, in The Rioja, Castellon, Teruel, Basin, Caceres, Tarragona, Huesca, lleida, Saragossa, Girona, Almeria and Navarre the percentage of municipalities without an office is greater than 50%. In total, 22 provinces have more than half of the municipalities without a bank branch.
On the contrary, Pontevedra (4.9%), the palms (2.9%). Santa Cruz of Tenerife (1.9%) and Jaen (1%), are the provinces with fewer municipalities without a bank branch.
vulnerable groups
The banking sector justifies the continuous closure of offices due to the greater weight of digital customers and in the decreasing influx of clients in the branches, which makes the establishments unprofitable. Even, financial sources explain, part of the branch network remains open despite generating losses for the bank.
However, in recent months the groups affected by the closure of offices They have raised their voices to demand face-to-face banking services, considering that they are being excluded from basic services.
To alleviate this gap, the banking employers’ associations AEB, CECA and Unacc recently signed a protocol of ten measures to help older and vulnerable customers overcome the obstacles that the digitization of the sector poses for them, so that service hours will be extended in person at branches. They will also offer personalized and preferential telephone assistance to the elderly and the language of ATMs will be simplified, among other measures.
In the last five years, Spanish banking has closed 33.4% of its branches, which is one in three. Thus, between 2016 and 2021 banks closed 9,700 branches until leaving its commercial network in 19,338 branches.
Initiatives to avoid financial exclusion
Monitoring and control. To measure the impact of the measures agreed upon by the banking employers, a Financial Inclusion Observatory will be created. Among other monitoring functions, the number of ATMs, branches and other services of each entity will be updated, especially those located in vulnerable areas, with the aim of preventing the population of these areas from being left without a way to withdraw cash or carry out basic services.
mobile offices. To alleviate this lack of face-to-face banking services and avoid financial exclusion, some initiatives have been carried out. CaixaBank has inherited Bankia’s Ofibus, a mobile branch, which runs through municipalities at risk of financial exclusion. The bank has 17 mobile offices that offer their service in eleven provinces: Ávila, Burgos, Castellón, Ciudad Real, Granada, Guadalajara, La Rioja, Madrid, Segovia, Toledo and Valencia. In 2021, some 220,000 operations were carried out in 2021, among which are withdrawing cash, making deposits and paying receipts and taxes.
Agreement with Correos. In 2020 Correos announced an agreement with Santander to offer basic banking services throughout Spain through the 4,675 citizen service points. It is an agreement that plans to extend to other entities.
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