The president of Ceca, Isidro Fainé, has estimated the investment in social work of the old savings banks at 800 million euros during the past year and has expressed his wish that this type of initiative can be extended "all over the world". .
"Social work has been one of the greatest exponents of solidarity and commitment to progress and equity", and last year "we mobilized a very high volume of economic resources, some 800 million euros", the president also stated of the ”la Caixa” Foundation during the 116th Assembly of the Mint, held in Madrid.
The figure mobilized last year is 2.8% higher than that of the previous year and allowed more than 72,000 activities to be carried out from which, according to the calculations of the Mint, 32 million people have benefited. In recent years, investments amount to 7,000 million and the initiatives to which they have been allocated, to more than 849,000.
"The social work constitutes the soul of our association and we are obliged to protect it. We would like to extend it throughout the world. We are going to promote it together with the WSBI, which currently allocates 2,800 million dollars to social works", Fainé assured in the assembly. The WSBI is the World Institute of Savings Banks and Retail Banks.
The Mint is made up of eight banks from the old savings banks. CaixaBank, Unicaja, Bancaja and Abanca stand out, which together with the rest of the Mint entities, account for 40% of the deposits in the Spanish financial system.
“It is precisely in times of greatest difficulties and uncertainties, such as the current one, when Ceca and its associated entities have an important mission to continue developing for the good of their customers and of the whole of society: making good banking for customers and a good banking for society", stated Fainé.
Of the 800 million from last year's social work, 313 million correspond to the area of social action, compared to 219 million from education and research and 153 million from culture and heritage.
The assembly has also analyzed the implementation of measures to serve the elderly and rural areas. The entities of the Mint have committed to maintaining savings cards for those over 65 years of age, which means they manage 8.6 million passbooks.
The situation of the banks in the current environment of uncertainty has also been reported. According to the Mint, they have a high resilience capacity that allows them to face the current situation "with solid capital and liquidity positions". The old savings banks advocate advancing in the European banking union.
"We are a continuous and reliable source of financing for all types of clients. In 2022, we granted 141,000 million euros, 32% more than in the previous year. At the end of the year, our credit portfolio already amounted to 416,000 million," he stated. Fainé when describing the situation of the banks of the Mint. Last year they closed it with a volume of customer deposits of 511,000 million euros.
