Spanish Confederation of Savings Banks

The ICCA was created in 1933 to enable the pooling of financial resources in order to fund or syndicate social-charter investments as well as establishing a lender of last resort scheme for the savings banks.

The CECA, as a collectively owned central operator became the main recipient of savings banks’ outsourcing strategies (including applications of information technology) and clearing activities.

The gradual removal of regulatory barriers allowed the CECA, in periods of strong growth of the Spanish economy, to offer their associates access to shared resources including clearing activities, with the end result of achieving economies of scale that allowed independent savings banks the development of previously non-existent competitive capabilities.

At the end of the 1980s all CECA members remained legally and functionally independent and, contrary to other European experiences, the alliance had not grown into a single franchise.

In this way, by the mid 1990s the co-operative mechanisms were sufficiently adapted to face market globalization, competition, ever-narrowing financial margins in banking and an accelerated pace in technological change.

The savings banks were able to delve deeper into efficiency and cost reduction, and hence improved their competitive advantage viz other financial intermediaries and benefited clearly from economies of scale.