Imagine you have a commanding market share in the national market, achieved partly by buying large rivals. Now, the scope for further M&A is not as great as before, partly due to competition rules. New technology is bringing new earnings possibilities – but also new challenges to your customer base.
These are issues that many large national champion banks are facing today, notably in Europe: whether it’s Lloyds Banking Group in the UK, Intesa Sanpaolo in Italy or CaixaBank in Spain.
CaixaBank’s 2021 integration of Bankia, previously Spain’s fourth biggest bank, gave it the largest market share of Spanish loans and deposits, almost 25%. Even if BBVA succeeds in its latest bid for Banco Sabadell, it will still be way off CaixaBank’s share.
The immediate future is, in other words, secure for Gonzalo Gortázar, CaixaBank’s CEO.
It’s not just about the products that we sell, but how: how you get from navigation through the app to the final sale
For Spanish banks, the coming years promise greater scope for growth in interest income and fees than before – thanks to relatively high economic growth, immigration and a tentative shift away from the long household deleveraging that took place after the 2008 and eurozone crises.
But
