The following list of banks in Spain is to be understood within the framework of the European single market and European banking union, which means that the Spanish banking system is more open to cross-border banking operations than peers outside of the EU.
European banking supervision distinguishes between significant institutions (SIs) and less significant institutions (LSIs), with SI/LSI designations updated regularly by the European Central Bank (ECB). Significant institutions are directly supervised by the ECB using joint supervisory teams that involve the national competent authorities (NCAs) of individual participating countries. Less significant institutions are supervised by the relevant NCA on a day-to-day basis, under the supervisory oversight of the ECB. [1] In the Spanish case, the NCA is the Bank of Spain. [2]
As of 1 September 2025, the list of supervised institutions maintained by the ECB included the following ten Spanish banking groups as SIs, with names as indicated by the ECB for each group's consolidating entity. [3] Of these, Santander has been consistently designated as Global systemically important bank (G-SIB) by the Financial Stability Board, including in its update of November 2025. [4]
A study published in 2024 assessed that the bank with most aggregate assets in Spain (as opposed to total consolidated assets) as of end-2023 was CiaxaBank at €569 billion, followed by Santander (€535 billion), BBVA (€468 billion), Sabadell (€235 billion), Bankinter (€113 billion), Unicaja (€93 billion), Abanca (€75 billion), Kutxabank (€64 billion), Cajamar (€60 billion), Ibercaja (€55 billion), ING ((€33 billion, via a branch), and Deutsche Bank (€22 billion, via a subsidiary). [5] : 27–29 Other euro-area banks with subsidiaries in Spain include BNP Paribas (via Cetelem), Crédit Agricole (via CACEIS), and Banca Mediolanum. [3]
As of 1 September 2025, the ECB's list of supervised institutions included 73 Spanish LSIs. [3]
Of these, five were designated by the ECB as "high-impact" on the basis of several criteria including size:
Based on the same ECB list, six Spanish LSIs were affiliates of financial groups based outside the euro area:
In addition to the entities cited above as SI (Cajamar) or high-impact LSIs (Grucajrural Inversiones and Caja Rural de Navarra), 41 more Spanish LSIs were associated with the rural cooperative banking (caja rural) movement:
One more cooperative bank was listed as LSI (in addition to above-mentioned Caja Laboral), albeit not a caja rural:
The remaining 20 Spanish LSIs were:
The Bank of Spain and Instituto de Crédito Oficial are public credit institutions that do not hold a banking license under EU law. [9]
A number of former Spanish banks, defined as having been headquartered in the present-day territory of Spain, are documented on Wikipedia. Many came to an end as a consequence of the 2008–2014 Spanish real estate crisis. They are listed below in chronological order of establishment.