This week, following the route map approved by CECA’s Board of Directors at its meeting in March, Cecabank started business as a bank providing wholesale financial services, having obtained the necessary authorisation from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Competitiveness. With the new structure, CECA’s governing bodies will continue taking decisions as an association to defend the interests of its member institutions (savings banks and their banking arms), and Cecabank, the new bank, will take care of providing services.
Cecabank was created with assets of 16,448 million euros, equity of 728 million euros and a core capital ratio of 13.6 percent. The Confederación Española de Cajas de Ahorros (Spanish Confederation of Savings Banks) is therefore following in the footsteps of almost all its member institutions by establishing an instrumental bank.
The new bank’s shareholders are the Confederation itself (CECA), with 89 percent, and the holders of the association’s former non-voting equity units, which have been converted into shares following a valuation by an independent expert, who hold the remaining 11 percent. Cecabank is a banking institution focused on the wholesale business that does not serve individual customers. It aims to become a benchmark institution in the Spanish wholesale financial market in terms of business. Its portfolio of products and business services to other financial institutions is divided in to the following lines:
- investment services: securities and depositary
- treasury management;
- technological resources and means of payment;
- consulting and support services.
