[1]: 1 Originally a savings bank (caja), it reorganized in the 2000s and 2010s: Its commercial assets are managed under its subsidiary CriteriaCaixa, which also has partial ownership of La Caixa's old banking business CaixaBank; those are used to fund La Caixa's Obra Social — social, cultural, scientific, and civic projects for the public good.

[3]: 3 In 1969, the Caja de Pensiones became the first in Europe to begin real-time computerized tele-processing of transactions, allowing customers to do banking at any branch at will.

[3]: 4 In the late 1980s, the Caja de Pensiones, by then known commonly known as "La Caixa", began work to expand outside of its usual territory: In 1986 it formed GrupCaixa to get around then-restrictive geographic limitations in the law; GrupCaixa was folded back into La Caixa in 1989 when the limitations were removed.

[3]: 4 In 1995, La Caixa opened the first international representative offices in Porto, Portugal and Brussels, Belgium.

[4][failed verification] In November 2006, the Board of Directors of La Caixa approved the IPO of its investee portfolio, through the company Criteria CaixaCorp, which became effective on 10 October 2007.

[6] On 27 January 2011, within the context of the restructuring of the financial system in Spain, the board of directors of La Caixa unveiled a complete reorganization of the group.

At the same time, in July 2011, another subsidiary of the group was created, in this case 100% owned by La Caixa, called Criteria CaixaHolding, which would not list on the stock exchange and would bring together the less attractive stocks such as real estate services (Servihabitat) and industrial holdings (Gas Natural Fenosa, Abertis...) and PortAventura World.

The "Civic Bank" brand was discarded and the SIP was liquidated, transferring its clients, offices and assets to CaixaBank.

[16] On September 3, 2020, it was announced that CaixaBank and Bankia were studying their merger to create the largest bank in Spain.

The Spanish State would go from owning 61.8% of Bankia to 14% of the merged entity, whose main shareholder would be the "la Caixa" Foundation, which would have around 30%.

On the other hand, the Spanish State, through the FROB and its company BFA Tenedora de Acciones, became a shareholder in the entity with 16.117%.