Over the past decade, the number of players in the Spanish market has shrunk from more than 50 to 10. This process gained momentum in 2020, when the Spanish banking landscape was transformed by a flurry of landmark merger and acquisition (M&A) deals. In that year, Abanca, a mid-sized lender and former savings bank, kickstarted the process by acquiring Crédit Agricole’s Spanish subsidiary, Bankoa, a small lender operating in northern Spain.
After previous frustrated attempts, this was followed by an all-share deal in which Unicaja agreed to buy rival Liberbank, creating the country’s fifth-largest domestic bank with close to €113bn in assets. The combined entity extends the new group’s presence to 80% of Spain’s territory and has boosted its market share in deposits, credits and off-balance sheet funds.
