CaixaBank exceeds expectations and closes 2025 with a record profit of €5.891 billion
The bank is revising the objectives of its strategic plan upwards.
ValenciaAnother historic year for CaixaBank. The bank, chaired by Tomàs Muniesa and with Gonzalo Gortázar as CEO, closed 2015 with a record profit of €5.891 billion, 1.8% higher than the previous year, according to the results published this Friday with the Spanish National Securities Market Commission (CNMV). In the last quarter, the bank's profit was €1.494 billion, 3.4% higher than in the previous quarter. "It has been a very positive year for the bank, and therefore also positive for the Spanish economy," stated the bank's CEO, Gonzalo Gortázar, during the press conference presenting the results in Valencia, where the bank maintains its headquarters – "and there are no plans to change it in the coming years" despite the Gortázar incident. "We have exceeded the expectations for the first year of the strategic plan," he noted.
In fact, the bank has exceeded all its targets for the year, leading it to revise its growth and profitability targets for the 2025-2027 Strategic Plan upwards. "2025 is the first year of our three-year strategic plan, and since it has gone so well, we have decided to revise the plan's targets upwards," the CEO pointed out. Specifically, CaixaBank is raising its forecast for business volume growth from 4% to 6%, and doing the same with the increase in performing loans and customer deposits. Gortázar also placed special emphasis on "the transformation plan," which includes the rollout of a new mobile application, the launch of new products and services (such as Facilitea Casa and Facilitea Coche), and the rapid adoption of generative AI. CaixaBank's net interest income fell 3.9% year-on-year to €10.671 billion due to lower interest rates, although it rose slightly in the last quarter compared to the previous one, reaching €2.715 billion (+1.5%). Mortgages are more expensive.
Mortgage loans and the residential market will define the short and medium term for banks. Despite various warnings from both the Bank of Spain and the European Central Bank (ECB), which have already announced they will review the criteria for granting mortgage loans by European banks, Gortázar has not expressed concern: "As long as what they establish is within a reasonable framework, the most important thing is the rules, and what I don't see is any urgency in the short term because there is no bubble; the urgency lies in creating a supply of housing and making it more accessible to people," he pointed out. According to CaixaBank's Chief Financial Officer, Matthias Bulach, the bank has granted just over 20 billion euros in mortgage loans, "more than in 2024," but "it is not expected to continue at this pace; it may continue to grow, but less abruptly." "The mortgage market is growing, not excessively, but our market share is around 25%, and therefore we aren't being aggressive in trying to take the market away from others; we're simply defending our position, and it's going well for us," explained Gortázar. The CEO anticipates that mortgages will become more expensive due to rising interest rates, and detailed that "the evolution of the mortgage market is significant, although before it was almost 100% variable-rate, and now more than half are fixed-rate." Furthermore, "the average mortgage rate in the rest of Europe is around 3%, and we're at 2.4%, but long-term interest rates will rise, and it's normal for mortgage rates to follow suit," he concluded.
Nevertheless, Gortázar assures that we are far from a real estate bubble like the one during the 2008 crisis. "The current market is very different from the real estate bubble of 20 years ago; the weight of residential investment in GDP has halved, most mortgages are at fixed interest rates, etc., on bank balance sheets," he explained.
Delinquency rates at record lows
The non-performing loan ratio, one of the most important indicators of a bank's solvency, has once again reached record lows. Specifically, it has fallen from 2.6% in December 2024 to 2.1% at the end of 2025; doubtful loans decreased by 15.7%, a total of €1.166 billion. In this regard, the institution expects to bring the non-performing loan ratio below 1.75% by 2027 – improving on the previously forecast 2% – and profitability (ROTE) to around 20%, and also anticipates an increase in the efficiency ratio.
About the Renewal of Isidre Fainé as president of the La Caixa Foundation Gortázar, a CaixaBank shareholder through Criteria, celebrated the extension of his position for another four years, stating, "That someone like him continues is a source of great satisfaction," and clarified that "this does not change the representation on the board." Regarding the BBVA takeover bid for Banc Sabadell, which dominated banking news in 2025, Gortázar asserted that it "has had no effect or influence" on CaixaBank's operations. Finally, the bank's board of directors approved a proposal to the shareholders' meeting for a supplementary cash dividend of €2.32 billion, equivalent to €0.3321 gross per share, to be paid from 2025 profits in April.
With this dividend, shareholder remuneration for fiscal year 2025 will reach 59.4% of consolidated net profit, equivalent to 50 cents gross per share, a 15% year-on-year increase, totaling €3.499 billion. Furthermore, the board has approved maintaining the dividend plan for 2026, with an interim dividend of between 30% and 40% of consolidated net profit for the first half of the year, and a final dividend to reach an effective distribution of between 50% and 60% of net profit at year-end.