Postal workers push for a public bank in Spain, but economists say it won't work

The Sindicato Libre union proposes that Correos, Spain's postal service, offer basic financial services through its network of more than 4,600 service points, backed by the Postal Act amended in 2025. Economists consulted consider it unworkable: public banking was privatised more than thirty years ago for being inefficient, and only 0.9% of the population lacks in-person access to banking services.

Correos has long been searching for ways to sustain its business. The postal company has seen a steady decline in its traditional activity, and since December 2023, when Juan Manuel Serrano left the company in technical bankruptcy, the management chaired by Pedro Saura has been tentatively exploring diversification. Selling AXA insurance policies at its offices was one of the first steps. The latest idea on the table is different and more ambitious: turning part of the postal network into a kind of public bank.

## The proposal: basic banking at 4,600 service points

The driving force behind the proposal is the Sindicato Libre. Its starting argument is territorial: **4,378 Spanish municipalities** have no bank branch, according to its figures, and their residents must travel several kilometres to carry out banking transactions, which is especially difficult for those who struggle with digitalisation. Correos has more than **4,600 service points** across the country, a network that would fit that role.

The legal backing would exist, according to this argument. In the summer of 2025, the Spanish Congress amended the Postal Act and gave Correos the capacity to act as a provider of Services of General Economic Interest (SGEI), a category that includes administrative procedures and basic financial services.

The model they propose would be an independent department attached to Correos, later to be transformed into a legal entity wholly owned by the postal company. The **Instituto de Crédito Oficial (ICO)**, Spain's state-owned credit institution, would create savings and investment instruments that this financial division would market exclusively, with a state guarantee. Investment banking, complex products and international expansion would be excluded. Governance, they say, should be protected by law with criteria of professional independence and financial prudence.

## The European examples cited by the promoters

The Sindicato Libre looks to France and Italy. **La Banque Postale**, part of the La Poste group, operates as a credit institution with a full licence and subject to the ordinary prudential regime; it opens basic accounts without profitability discrimination and maintains territorial accessibility through the postal network.

The Italian case is different. **BancoPosta** is not a bank, but an internal financial division of Poste Italiane authorised to provide financial services under a specific regime supervised by the Italian central bank. It cannot grant credit on its own account, although it can commercially manage and collect loans granted by credit institutions with which it signs agreements.

## What the economists say: public banking has already been tried

The economists consulted by El Debate do not consider the operation viable. **José María Rotellar** is blunt: "A public bank makes no sense at all. They already existed and were privatised. One of them, with exactly that model, was Caja Postal." The Caja Postal de Ahorros was precisely the public institution linked to the Spanish postal service, later absorbed into the private banking sector.

**Santiago Carbó**, professor at CUNEF, agrees: "Public banking was privatised more than thirty years ago because it was not efficient and it ended up absorbed into BBVA." Carbó admits that public banking can make sense to correct a market failure, but does not see that being the case now, not even for mortgages, where the problem is the lack of housing rather than a lack of credit supply.

His diagnosis of financial exclusion is the core of the matter. "In a country with no financial exclusion problems, where the entire population is served by private banks, financial cooperatives, the savings banks that still exist and online banking, a public bank makes no sense," he argues. The **Banco de España's 2025 Financial Inclusion Report** puts at just **0.9%** the share of the population without access to an in-person banking point in their locality.

## A future still to be settled

The gap between the two figures is the key to the debate: the 4,378 municipalities without a bank branch cited by the Sindicato Libre coexist with a 0.9% of the population without in-person access according to the Banco de España. The difference lies in how it is measured: affected municipalities versus affected people, in a country with a population highly concentrated in urban centres.

Given this outlook, the possibility of a postal public bank succeeding is remote. What is beyond dispute is the urgency of the underlying problem: Correos' executives must keep looking for ways to transform the company and make it sustainable, along with the jobs that depend on it. Any decision on financial services involves risks and should be checked against specialised advice.