It was founded in Betanzos, A Coruña (Spain) in 1717 by Juan Etcheverry (née Jean d’Etcheverry), a French businessman and tannery owner who had settled in Galicia.

His family inherited and continued the bank business through generations; the primitive Etcheverry transformed the surname to Etcheverría to adapt to Spanish spelling (although the standard Spanish spelling is now Echeverría).

Its current stockholders (Francisco Javier, Asunción, María Cruz and Magdalena Etcheverría de la Muela) are all from the Etcheverría family, except the Caixa Galicia savings bank, which bought a 37.12% stake in 2002 for 13.25 million euros.

[4] In December 2012 Venezuela's largest bank, Banesco, bought the largest stake in Banco Etcheverría by acquiring the 44.7% owned in the latter by nationalized Spanish bank Novagalicia Banco (NGB) and shares owned by the Etcheverría family.

This Spanish bank or insurance-related article is a stub.