CatalunyaCaixa will be the name of the second Catalan savings bank

Barcelona (ACN).- The merger of the savings banks Caixa Catalunya, Caixa Tarragona and Caixa Manresa now has a name. The official name will be CatalunyaCaixa while the legal name of the second savings bank in Catalonia will be Caixa Catalunya Tarragona Manresa. After the merging was approved in May by the board of all three savings banks, the commercial name of the resulting entity was still to be decided. The new board approved the name yesterday after rounds of negotiations and strategic studies.

While Caixa Catalunya was the biggest corporation, it did not want to impose its name, assured the new financial entity’s executive director, Adolf Todó. However, they did want to maintain the words “Caixa”, which means “savings bank” in Catalan, and “Catalunya”, to show the implication with the territory. The formula CatalunyaCaixa aims to show that the savings bank is a new project.

It is an “important” decision, a “wanted and desired” brand, one which is not the product of an “improvised” agreement, said the presidents of the 3 merging savings banks, Narcís Serra, Manel Rosell and Gabriel Ferraté, from Caixa Catalunya, Caixa Manresa and Caixa Tarragona, respectively. The changes regarding the commercial brand will be effective within the next year in the 1,200 branches of CatalunyaCaixa. The president  will be Narcís Serra, former Spanish Deputy Prime Minister during the early 1990s.

Adolf Todó also explained that the new savings bank’s board has not taken any decision regarding enlarging its capital. “We are studying it,” he said. Once this decision is taken, in case of needing more capital, this sum will be quantified and only then will it be decided how to get it. Todó also stressed that the recent Basilea III agreement leaves them enough time to study this matter calmly, as the new requirements will start in 2015 and be fully in place in 2019.