• The 'successful restructuring story' of Bankia 'can and must become a growth story', since the bank has 'great opportunities' in the coming years
  • Its new positioning 'should enable us to maintain our leadership in solvency, efficiency and profitability, which is the way to create value for our shareholders'
  • Bankia has increased its customer base by 10,200 customers per month so far this year

Bankia's chairman, José Ignacio Goirigolzarri, today said that the bank's main goal for the next few years is 'profitable growth', based on a combination of organic and non-organic growth, in reference to the deal with BMN.

In his speech at the course organised by the Association of Financial Journalists (APIE) at Menéndez Pelayo International University (UIMP), Goirigolzarri explained that the Bankia project 'has changed focus' after pushing through a 'successful restructuring'.

'Today Bankia can and must become a growth story', said the bank's chairman, after recognising that from an organic perspective, the company has 'great opportunities' in the coming years. 'If I had to sum up our goal for the next few years, I would say it was growth, profitable growth', he said.

Goirigolzarri pointed out that from January 2018 'we will be freed from the constraints that the European Commission imposed on us' in 2012, and 'we will be on an equal footing with our competitors'. The bank will be able to access activities that have been restricted to date, such as financing real estate development or certain capital markets operations.

Goirigolzarri: Three principles, closeness, simplicity and transparency, are guiding us in the transformation of the bank

Bankia's chairman referred to the new positioning launched by the bank in January 2016 that sought to focus on the customer through three principles - closeness, simplicity and transparency. 'These three principles are guiding us in the transformation of the bank', insisted Goirigolzarri, with a clear response from customers.

With this new positioning, and 'in light of the internal dynamics and the growing degree of maturity of our organisation, growth will accelerate in the coming months', said Goirigolzarri.

Bankia managed to significantly increase its customer base during the first five months of the year, growing by an average of 10,200 customers per month during this period according to Goirigolzarri.

This rise in new customers led to an increase in the volume of direct deposits of salaries and pensions, which grew by 10.5% and 'the dynamics continue to improve'. This is in addition to the strong performance in consumer loans, in which total lending increased by 21.6%.

In relation to financing, Goirigolzarri highlighted that 'the actions we have taken in mortgages are also having notable success'. Bankia has tripled the number of mortgage applications since the launch of the 'No Fees Mortgage' in January. 'Moreover, what is really important is that 22% of these are not from existing customers'.

More credit for SMEs

In the world of business banking, Bankia is working to increase the proportion of SMEs in its credit portfolio by expanding its customer base. The bank estimates that the number of SMEs with investment has grown by 7% in the last 12 months.

Furthermore, newly generated lending to SMEs jumped 22.4%, increasing the bank's market share in products such as factoring or foreign trade financing.

In relation to these milestones, Goirigolzarri acknowledged that 'we have been preparing for a long time, and this should enable us to maintain our leadership in solvency, efficiency and profitability, which is the way to create value for our shareholders'.

'On this point, I can say that we have achieved all of the objectives that we set ourselves, both in our Strategic Plan 2012-2015 and in the restructuring plan', said the chairman of Bankia.

With regards to non-organic growth, Goirigolzarri said that the Bankia and BMN teams are still working on the stock swap ratio for the integration, having completed the due diligence and corresponding analysis. 'The deal with BMN makes complete business and strategic sense', confirmed Goirigolzarri.

Bankia SA published this content on 21 June 2017 and is solely responsible for the information contained herein.
Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 21 June 2017 18:35:07 UTC.

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