Bankia : José Ignacio Goirigolzarri: “Bankia granted 20% more loans in the first half of the year”

• The institution's chairman says that one of the challenges is to increase revenue, which can be done by enhancing lending capacity
• "Bankia's aim and commitment is to be closer to Castile and León and its citizens" 

Bankia chairman José Ignacio Goirigolzarri said today that the institution granted 76,000 more loan operations in the first six months of the year, up about 20% year-on-year. During this six-month period it lent a total of 6.351 billion euros.

During his speech at an information session organised by the newspaper El Norte de Castilla, Goirogolzarri specified that in Castile and León Bankia conducted more than 4,000 such operations worth 247 million in the first half-year (30% more than last year).

The chairman indicated he was proud of Bankia's performance in Castile and León, where it is a "reference bank" with a market share of 8.69% and more than 350,000 customers, counting 138 individual branches and three business centres in the region. He also highlighted Bankia's aim and commitment "to be closer to Castile and León and its citizens."

Goirgolzarri mentioned the challenges Bankia faces this year and in the near future include increasing revenue and hence the bank's lending capacity, "although we are already making progress in credit flow," as the newly released figures indicate. One of the goals set by the institution's new Transformation Committee is to achieve a strong improvement in the lending market share, with an increase of 100 basis points in the SME financing share, he specified.

Bankia is also making efforts to rework the distribution model, which will allow us "to face the new market reality," though always emphasising efficiency, he explained. Since the 2012-2015 Strategy Plan began being applied in December 2012 the institution has improved its efficiency ratio from 63.3% to 49.3% at the end of March.

All this will help accomplish another major objective: to continue restoring confidence in Bankia among clients and the market. The chairman underscored the "significant progress with the informed public" and that the challenge was now to do the same with the rest. To that end, progress is being made on internal explanation and definition of the principles and values, so that when the time is right they can be externally transmitted in an entirely consistent manner. In that regard, "no goal or result can justify breaching the values," he stressed.

Current situation

Bankia's chairman devoted part of his speech to explaining the institution's current situation. He called attention to the fact that profits were being distributed from quarter to quarter after exceeding in 2013 the projections set out in the Strategy Plan, and that more than 3.3 billion of capital has been generated, enabling solvency to rise to 13.5% and 12% for BFA and Bankia, respectively.

He also noted that nonperforming assets are being controlled, to the point that last year (without taking into account Bank of Spain refinancing rules) doubtful loans were reduced by 1.2 billion, and by a further 2 billion this year. A strong improvement in efficiency is being achieved and progress made toward "clear network maturity" as indicated, for example, by the share in investment funds rising from 4.52% to 4.92% in just over a year.