Worrying news for Ex Caja Madrid & Bancaja customers as staff are told to announce that Bankia are to close 99% of branches on the Costa del Sol.
Having heard the rumour that Bankia were closing all of its branches in Marbella I decided to pop into my local branch (Ex Caja Madrid) to see if the gossip was in fact true.
I emailed the branch manager to see if he was able to meet with me to discuss this and to my surprise I received a very quick response informing me that he was available to do so and we arranged the meeting with no problem at all.
Basically the outcome of the changes are that all ex Bancaja and Caja Madrid branches will be closed in Andalucia apart from a few representative branches in Major cities including Malaga.
This means that if you are an existing Bankia client you will have to go to Malaga to speak to someone face to face which can be a huge inconvenience.
What should you do if you have a relationship with Bankia?
Well it really depends on the type of relationship you have, for instance, if you just have a current account or savings account then it would be fairly easy to make the transition away from them to another more stable local bank of your choice. If on the other hand you hold a mortgage or then you will need to keep your account open with them for payment of said loan but that doesn’t mean that you still couldn’t open a new account with a new bank and arrange regular transfers to service the mortgage or loan that you already have.
Personally given the terrible press that Bankia have had in recently months / years, I believe it would be a good idea to relocate your banking relationship away from Bankia especially if you have savings with them as, even though they have had government / tax payers money, it still doesn’t guarantee that money would be 100% safe and anyway, why would you want to travel to Malaga or Seville just to query any charges you may have incurred.
If you need to talk about your Spanish bank account and potentially moving it, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with Fluent Finance Abroad.
