Bankia : José Ignacio Goirigolzarri: “Bankia can comfortably face the next stress tests for European banking”

• "The institution's capital generation model is currently self-sustaining"
• "One of our key values, which we strive to achieve every day, is closeness to our customers"
• "The needs of private banking clients are special and unique, because what is valid for one is not valid for another" 

Bankia chairman José Ignacio Goirigolzarri said today that the institution's capital generation model is currently self-sustaining, enabling it to "very comfortably face the next stress tests for European banking".

In his speech at a conference organised by Bankia Private Banking and the economic newspaper Expansión, Goirigolzarri described how the bank was able to guarantee its financial solidity in the last two years, becoming profitable again and maximising value as a way to return the assistance received.

It did this by accomplishing the challenges set down in the 2012-2015 Strategy Plan, whose main priority goal is to achieve 10% return on equity, and always on the "non-negotiable" basis of certain firm and recognisable principles. "One of our great values, which we strive to achieve every day, is closeness to our customers," he said.

Advice for private banking clients

"While in itself very important, it is all the more so for private banking and attending to clients and their needs, which are special and unique because what's valid for one client is not valid for another," said Goirigolzarri, who explained that "it is fundamental to ascertain those needs, as is appropriate advice like that provided by our private banking teams."

To maximally boost private banking, the various platforms were integrated last year into one single one, Bankia Banca Privada, which joined the group, though maintaining its own identity and way of doing things, specialised and focused on the specific needs of its clients.

"A basic part of our value proposal for those clients is to be able to offer advice in accordance with the fiscal reality of each one," the bank's chairman stated. Bankia's private banking advisors are therefore kept continually up-to-date in the ever-changing and dynamic world of tax regulation.

In line with this constant updating of its advisors and clients, Bankia Banca Privada and the newspaper Expansión today held a conference on "Tax Reform and How it Impacts Property Management". Speakers included Manuel Lagares, chairman of the Committee of Experts for Tax Reform, and Luis Bravo, a partner of Cuatrecasas.