Three Basque savings banks create KutxaBank

Basque bank Kutxabak begins its activity January 2nd becoming the fourth largest savings bank and the ninth biggest financial institution in Spain in terms of active shares (worth 75,729 million euros).

Biscayan bank BBK owns 57% of Kutxa Bank, Gipuzkoa's Kutxa 32% and Alava's Caja Vital, 11%. Kutxa Bank S.A. has its official headquarters in Bilbao, while each organisation will continue to run its own provincial banks in their respective territories (Biscay, Gipuzkoa and Alava). It will focus on retail banking in the Basque Country and also have some presence in the southern Andalusia region.

The General Assemblies of the three Basque savings banks BBK, Caja Vital and Kutxa voted in November 2011 an integration plan for a cold merger to create the new bank, Kutxa bank.

The Board of Directors of the newly-merged bank will be made up of fifteen people: Nine from BBK, 4 from Kutxa and 2 from Caja Vital. The President of the new bank, Mario Fernández, comes from BBK, the first Vice-president from Kutxa and the second Vice-president from Caja Vital.

The new bank will have a total of 1,300 offices and 9,000 employees. It is also forecast to make a saving of 100m euros in synergies.