Letter from the CEO
Gonzalo Gortazar Rotaeche
CEO
2024 has proven to be an exceptionally successful
year for CaixaBank. Thanks to the outstanding
efforts of our entire team, we have enhanced our
commercial activities, increased profitability, and
surpassed the goals set in our 2022-2024 strategic
plan.
In a demanding and competitive landscape, we have
strengthened our market position, witnessing
significant growth across all sectors. Notably, in
savings management, customer funds saw an
impressive rise of 8.7%, reaching €685,365 million.
This expansion is driven by growth in both deposits
and wealth management products, leading to
enhanced market shares in Spain, with 24.7% in
deposits and 29.5% in wealth management.
Lending activities have shown strong momentum,
with the performing loan portfolio growing by 2.2%
to €344,052 million over the year, with positive
contributions from all segments. Business loans
increased by 4.9%, consumer loans by 7.2%, and the
mortgage portfolio by 0.5%, indicating a year of
heightened demand. The insurance business has
also performed outstandingly, with an 11.7% rise in
the premiums for general and life risk insurance,
underscoring the benefits and quality of our broad
and varied product and service offerings.
The 2024 results underline the robustness of our
operations. Amidst normalising interest rates, our
income surged by 11.5% to €15,873 million, while
our cost-to-income ratio improved to 38.5%. The
group's profit rose by 20.2% from 2023, totalling
€5,787 million, yielding a return on shareholder
equity of 15.4%, which is a commendable figure
following years of low returns due to negative
interest rates.
Financial stability remains a core priority and
defining feature for CaixaBank. We ended the year
with a CET1 capital ratio of 12.2%, exceeding the
minimum requirement by 351 basis points, and
liquidity remains at outstanding levels. The non-
performing loan ratio dropped to 2.6%, the lowest
since 2008. During this financial year the four most
prominent rating agencies have improved the
CaixaBank rating.
This strong performance enables us to uphold our
cash dividend policy, proposing to distribute 53.5%
of the year's profits, amounting to €3,096 million, to
our over 558,000 shareholders.