Caja Madrid, formally the Caja de Ahorros y Monte de Piedad de Madrid, headquartered in Madrid

Madrid

Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

, is the oldest of the Spanish savings banks

Savings bank (Spain)

In Spain, a savings bank is a financial institution which specializes in accepting savings deposits and granting loans. Their original aim was to create the habit of thrift amongst the very poor but they have evolved to compete with and rival commercial banks.Their trade association is the Spanish...

. It was founded on December 3, 1702 as Monte de Piedad de Madrid by Francisco Piquer, an Aragonese

Aragon

Aragon is a modern autonomous community in Spain, coextensive with the medieval Kingdom of Aragon. Located in northeastern Spain, the Aragonese autonomous community comprises three provinces : Huesca, Zaragoza, and Teruel. Its capital is Zaragoza...

 priest. Currently, Caja Madrid is the regional-owned bank of the Community of Madrid (Comunidad de Madrid).

On the 27th of June 2011, Caja Madrid became Bankia as seen on the Caja Madrid website.

Monte de Piedad

The Monte de Piedad de Madrid was the first Spanish Monte de Piedad, following a pattern that had been started in fifteenth-century Italy. These institutions were organised as a charity, organized and operated by Christians, and offering financial loans at a moderate rate interest to those in need. The money lent out was from a fund built up by voluntary donations from financially privileged people who had no intentions of regaining their money. The people in need would then be able to come to the Monte di Pietà and give an item of value in exchange for a monetary loan. The term of the loan would last the course of a year and would only be worth about two-thirds of the borrower’s item value. A pre-determined interest rate would be applied to the loan and these profits were used to pay the expenses of operating the Monte di Pietà. Such organizations spread throughout the continent of Western Europe during the Middle Ages

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

, a credit to the preaching of Franciscans and their condemnation of usury

Usury

Usury Originally, when the charging of interest was still banned by Christian churches, usury simply meant the charging of interest at any rate . In countries where the charging of interest became acceptable, the term came to be used for interest above the rate allowed by law...

.

The Montes de Piedad appeared in Spain when Francisco de Piquer y Rodilla founded the Monte de Piedad de Madrid by depositing a silver Spanish real

Spanish real

The real was a unit of currency in Spain for several centuries after the mid-14th century, but changed in value relative to other units introduced...

 in a box as the beginning of a fund to which he gave the name, Nuestra Señora del Santo Monte de Piedad de las Ánimas . It was intended that the fund would be augmented by the donations of the faithful who wished to ease the suffering of the souls of their relatives who were in purgatory

Purgatory

Purgatory is the condition or process of purification or temporary punishment in which, it is believed, the souls of those who die in a state of grace are made ready for Heaven...

 by providing donations that could be used as loans to ease the suffering of the needy in this life.

Caja de Ahorros

The Monte de Piedad de Madrid did not charge interest on its loans until 1836 when a charge was introduced to cover operating costs of the organisation. In 1838, by royal decree, the Caja de Ahorros de Madrid was founded as a savings bank on the British model following the ideas of Jeremy Bentham

Jeremy Bentham

Jeremy Bentham was an English jurist, philosopher, and legal and social reformer. He became a leading theorist in Anglo-American philosophy of law, and a political radical whose ideas influenced the development of welfarism...

. Initially the Caja de Ahorros and the Monte de Piedad worked closely together but remained separate institutions. But, in 1869 the two institutions were merged and became the Monte de Piedad y Caja de Ahorros de Madrid. Later, to show the importance of the savings side of the operation the title of the merged institution was reversed and it became the Caja de Ahorros y Monte de Piedad de Madrid.

Current business

Currently Caja Madrid is the fourth largest financial group in Spain, with a turn-over of 180,700 million euros in 2005. It has 12,800 employees in a national network of 1,900 offices, as well as four foreign branches in Miami, Lisbon

Lisbon

Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...

, Dublin and Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

. It also has 330 bank branches within the offices of the insurance company, Mapfre

Mapfre

Mapfre is a Spanish insurance company, based in Majadahonda, Madrid. The name comes from the old mutual origin of the company , but the company now only refers to itself as Mapfre...

.

Apart from its traditional banking business, Caja Madrid participates in a collection of companies, either directly or via the holding company

Holding company

A holding company is a company or firm that owns other companies' outstanding stock. It usually refers to a company which does not produce goods or services itself; rather, its purpose is to own shares of other companies. Holding companies allow the reduction of risk for the owners and can allow...

, Corporacion Financiera Caja Madrid..

Social responsibilities

Caja Madrid carries out social work through two entities that it has set up: Obra Social Caja Madrid and Fundación Caja Madrid. These carry out work on its behalf in the fields of social work, teaching, cultural matters and the environment. In 2005 the amount spent by the two bodies on behalf of Caja Madrid reached 161 million euros. Some of the bank’s users have criticised it, along with the other Spanish savings banks for having lost its charitable character in the course of developing its business as a bank.

New headquarters

In 2009 Caja Madrid acquired a new headquarters in a newly-completed sky-scraper office block known as Torre Caja Madrid (Caja Madrid Tower). The tower was originally intended for the Spanish company Repsol, and the principal architect was Norman Foster

Norman Foster, Baron Foster of Thames Bank

Norman Robert Foster, Baron Foster of Thames Bank, OM is a British architect whose company maintains an international design practice, Foster + Partners....

. It is situated in the district of Fuencarral-El Pardo in Madrid. The tower has 45 floors and is 250 metres high.

External links

• Caja Madrid site