Banking, a Sector Committed to Rural Spain

Herminia is getting ready to pay for her weekly groceries at the only store left in her village of just 200 inhabitants. Before sliding her card through the POS terminal, she asks the store owner to add 50 euros in cash to the total amount. Her grandchildren will be visiting her this weekend, and she promised to supplement the allowance they receive from their parents. Carefully folding the bill, she stores it in her wallet and bids farewell, determinedly pulling the shopping cart.

Although the scene is fictional, solutions like this to access cash are becoming increasingly common in the municipalities of rural Spain that have either never had an ATM or lost one at some point due to the unstoppable advance of a particularly intense demographic phenomenon in our country: depopulation.

According to the General Secretariat for Demographic Challenge, despite the Spanish population growing by 7.5 million people so far this century, the depopulation process has intensified, mainly affecting rural populations which also have significant geographic dispersion.

Ensuring In-Person Access to Financial Services in Rural Spain: A Priority for the Banking Sector

In this context, the dilemma arises of how to guarantee the provision of essential services—among others, healthcare, education, or financial—when rural populations are emptied and the traditional model of in-person service becomes unviable. Alberto Aza, spokesperson for CECA (an association comprising CaixaBank, Kutxabank, Cajasur Banco, Abanca, Unicaja, Ibercaja Banco, Caixa Ontinyent, Colonya Pollença, and Cecabank), highlights the structural nature of the problem and advocates for ambitious public policies along with the indispensable collaboration of the private sector. Based on this premise, banking has been the first sector to activate a roadmap to definitively address the challenges faced by residents in rural communities when accessing financial services. This action plan, coordinated by the banking employers CECA, AEB, and UNACC, was launched in October 2022 with the goal of ensuring in-person access to financial services across all municipalities, or in other words, total financial inclusion.

To achieve this goal, the roadmap outlines solutions for municipalities with more than 500 inhabitants, such as branches, the installation of ATMs, the reinforcement of the financial agent role, or mobile offices that serve itinerantly.

For municipalities with less than 500 inhabitants, the sector’s priority at first is to guarantee access to cash through innovative solutions like cashback or cash in shop, which Herminia used, and the Correos Cash service.

One year after the implementation of the roadmap, the progress achieved is encouraging. 93% of municipalities with more than 500 inhabitants that previously lacked a physical access point now have one or are in the process of obtaining it. In light of this reality, Alberto Aza emphasizes: “We are close to achieving our goal; Spanish entities could rank at the top of the international financial inclusion ranking.”