The number of towns without access to banking services has decreased to 75% during the last three years. For 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 71.5% in terms of inhabitants.”

Withdrawing money, paying a bill or updating a card are everyday actions in the city, but a challenge in some places in rural Spain. The financial gap, together with the ageing population, has become one of the major concerns of the part of Spain commonly referred to as "deserted". However, while other basic services such as health and trade have a negative trend, new banking initiatives have driven financial accessibility in recent years.

Clear evidence of progress is that, in just three years, the number of municipalities with more than 500 inhabitants without face-to-face access to banking services has fallen by 75%. This is reflected in the Report on Financial Inclusion in Spain, commissioned by the employers AEB, CECA and Unacc to the Valencian Institute of Economic Research (Ivie) to address the risk of financial exclusion in rural areas and the part of Spain "deserted" as a result of the gradual reduction of bank branches and ATMs.

Moreover, the study, with data from 2023, reveals that only 0.9% of the population still do not have access to face-to-face financial services. At the end of last year, barely 60 of a total of 4,142 municipalities with more than 500 inhabitants lacked them. These figures, “especially low,” according to Alberto Aza, CECA spokesperson, 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 number of municipalities and 71.5% in terms of inhabitants.”

Although more than 10,000 ATMs have disappeared over the last few years (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 places without prior access, the expansion of financial agents and mobile offices, and the growing training in financial and digital education, which benefited more than 650,000 people in 2024.

In addition, the collaboration with Correos and local businesses has allowed services to be offered to more than 1.1 million people in municipalities without physical branches, thanks to initiatives such as cashback (which allows cash withdrawals at local stores) and the Correos Cash service. According to Aza, although the cashback still has “a more limited implementation,” it represents “a strategic opportunity to expand access to cash through local businesses”.

Meanwhile, although the sensitivity to financial exclusion has increased over the last few years, entities such as Eurocaja Rural have closed the gap in rural areas for more than a decade. As the bank has highlighted, its Expansion Plan, which began in 2011, has multiplied its branch network by more than twice, reaching more than 480 branches currently, and remains the only financial institution in a total of 70 difficult-to-access towns.

Eurocaja Rural highlights its focus on small towns, where more than 50% of its clientele are concentrated, with personalised attention focused on more than 80,000 people who are “rescued from financial exclusion,” they stress.