News

98.6% of the Spanish population lives in a municipality with at least one access point to banking services

Joaquín Maudos presents the main conclusions of the report on financial inclusion in Spain, developed for AEB, CECA and UNACC

The number of bank branches in Spain has dropped by 58.4%, from 45,707 branches in its peak of 2008 to a total of 19,015 in 2021. The number of ATM machines has also been reduced by 23% during this period, from 61,714 to 47,639. Despite these closures, Spain is still the third country in the EU-27 with the most access points to financial services per inhabitant, with an average of 1.52 per 1,000 inhabitants, compared to the European average of 1.08.

The Spanish Banking Association (AEB), CECA and the National Union of Credit Cooperatives (UNACC) have just presented the report on financial inclusion in Spain, carried out by the Ivie, which offers an update of the access points to banking services in Spain. Joaquín Maudos, Deputy Director of the Ivie and director of the report, gave an overview of the main results.

According to Joaquín Maudos, 54.4% of the 8,131 municipalities in Spain have been left without any bank branches because of the closures. These towns or villages are very small and in total have 1,555,688 inhabitants, accounting for 3.3% of the total. However, banks introduced various actions, such as adding ATM machines, agents, post offices with banking services and relocated offices in many towns, so that the population without access to financial services has been reduced to 657,577 people, only 1.4% of the total Spanish population. Therefore, currently, 98.6% of the Spanish population lives in a municipality with at least one access point to banking services.

These overall figures vary depending on the province, as regional differences are large. The percentage of the population without access to banking services in their town or village varies from practically 0% in some provinces to 22.9% in Zamora. The level of financial exclusion is also above 10% in Zamora, Salamanca, León and Burgos.

In sum, more than 99% of the inhabitants in Spain have access to these services less than 5 kilometers away or less than a 10 minute drive from where they live.