Proximity banking increases efforts to close the financial gap

The number of towns without access to banking services has decreased by 75% over the last three years. According to Alberto Aza: “the measures implemented by the Spanish banking sector have enabled financial exclusion to fall by 38.4% in 2023 in terms of the number of municipalities and by 71.5% in terms of inhabitants.”

Withdrawing money, paying a bill, or updating a passbook are everyday gestures in the city, but they pose a significant challenge in some areas of rural Spain. The financial gap, coupled with the aging population, has become one of the major concerns of what is known as the emptied Spain. However, while other basic services such as healthcare or commerce are experiencing a negative trend, new banking initiatives have driven financial accessibility in recent years.

A clear indication of progress is that, in just three years, the number of municipalities with more than 500 inhabitants lacking in-person access to banking services has fallen by 75%. This is reflected in the Report on Financial Inclusion in Spain, commissioned by the employers’ associations AEB, CECA, and Unacc to the Valencian Institute of Economic Research (Ivie) to address the risk of financial exclusion in rural areas and the emptied Spain due to the progressive reduction of bank branches and ATMs.

Moreover, the study, with data from 2023, reveals that only 0.9% of the population still lacks access to in-person financial services. At the end of last year, only 60 out of a total of 4,142 municipalities with more than 500 inhabitants were without such services. These figures, deemed “particularly low” by Alberto Aza, spokesperson for CECA, are the result of “the measures implemented by the Spanish banking sector, which have enabled financial exclusion to fall by 38.4% in 2023 in terms of the number of municipalities and by 71.5% in terms of inhabitants.”

Despite the fact that over the past few years more than 10,000 ATMs have disappeared (3%, located in municipalities with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants), Aza highlights the actions that have improved the situation: the installation of new ATMs in previously underserved locations, the expansion of financial agents and mobile offices, and the increasing training in financial and digital education, which benefited more than 650,000 older adults in 2024.

Additionally, collaboration with Correos and local commerce has enabled services to be offered to over 1.1 million people in municipalities without physical offices, thanks to initiatives such as cashback (which allows cash withdrawal at local shops) and the Correos Cash service. In Aza’s view, although cashback still has “more limited implementation,” it represents “a strategic opportunity to expand access to cash through local businesses.”

On the other hand, while sensitivity regarding financial exclusion has increased in recent years, entities like Eurocaja Rural have been closing the gap in rural areas for over a decade. As highlighted by the entity, its Expansion Plan, initiated in 2011, has more than doubled its network of offices, reaching over 480 branches today, and remains the sole financial institution in a total of 70 hard-to-reach localities.

Eurocaja Rural emphasizes its community-focused approach, where more than 50% of its clientele is concentrated, providing personalized attention to over 80,000 individuals who have been “rescued from financial exclusion,” they stress.