Research Areas

In July 2022, the three banking associations, Spanish Banking Association (AEB), CECA and the National Union of Credit Cooperatives (UNACC) commissioned the Ivie (represented by its Research Deputy Director, Joaquín Maudos) to develop a report on financial inclusion in Spain with detailed information by entities and municipalities, identifying the municipalities that have no physical access to banking services and the population residing in them. Thus, allowing to identify the percentage of municipalities and people without face-to-face access to banking services over the total. Since then, the annual evolution of financial inclusion has been monitored on the basis of the information available as of December 31 of every year. In addition, in 2023, four quarterly reports were prepared, that focused on the 243 municipalities with more than 500 inhabitants that as of December 2021 were considered “financially excluded” because they did not have any access point to financial services.

In order to continue monitoring the evolution of financial inclusion in Spain, the banking associations have commissioned the Ivie once again a new update of the Annual Financial Inclusion Report. The report provides an overview of in-person access to banking services in Spain as of 31 December 2024. In addition to analyzing access to the bank branch network, the report will also take into account other forms of access to banking services, such as ATM machines, mobile offices, financial agents or cashpoints in post offices. In addition, as in previous reports, the financial inclusion diagnostic considers the ATM network of non-bank companies.